1,400 Megapixel Pan-STARRS Telescope Comes Online

ElectricSteve writes "Astronomers in Hawaii have announced they've successfully managed to boot up the Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) telescope. Working from dusk to dawn every night, Pan-STARRS is able to map one-sixth of the sky each month, allowing astronomers to track all moving objects, calculate their orbits, and identify any potential threats to Earth. There are four Pan-STARRS cameras in total, each capable of capturing around 1.4 billion pixels over a sensor measuring 40 centimeters square. The focal plane of each camera contains an almost complete 64x64 array of CCD devices, each containing approximately 600x600 pixels, for a total resolution of 1.4 gigapixels."

That's a lot of pixels

[symbolset]

Automation is good, but where are they going to get the humans to evaluate the gigabits per second of data? Are they looking for a volunteer effort, or have they got it?

Re:That's a lot of pixels

[Anonymous Coward]

That's where the automation comes in.

Looking in the wrong direction?

[Psaakyrn]

Somehow, I think there are more threats to Earth down here than up there..

Re:Looking in the wrong direction?

[Anonymous Coward]

If only there was more than one human being alive on the earth so that we might be able to address more than one threat at a time. Oh wait...

Re:That's a lot of pixels

[chichilalescu]

it's kind of sad, but in today's big cities you can't see stars. Light pollution, smog, whatever.
personally, at some point I am going to miss them enough to go to a website where they want me to watch starry skies.