Exoplanet Hunting NGTS Telescope Array Achieves First Light

Zothecula writes The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) array, built by a UK, German and Swiss consortium, has achieved first light at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The installation is designed to search for exoplanets between two and eight times the size of Earth, studying them as they pass in front of their parent star.

Comments

Re:Not much aperture

[gstoddart]

I think software went a long way.

Before Hubble, the only way was huge optics and high elevations.

Somewhere in the middle, the software compensating for the atmosphere got much better, and suddenly ground-based stuff was as good as Hubble.

They also do the neat tricks of the very-long-baseline where several smaller telescopes can get combined into what is effectively a huge telescope, but is much more cheaper to build than a single massive one.

I kind of get the impression the astronomers have been busy over the last few decades ... CCDs used to be expensive and exotic. Now everybody carries on in their pocket -- so both the hardware and the software have given them huge strides over the last bunch of years.

Almost to the point that by the time someone has built the next big thing, someone has come close to beating it for a fraction of the cost.