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Space Science

The Humble Space Telescope 75

Posted by chrisd from the again-canadians-show-us-how dept.
frank249 writes " How would you like to do your own astronomy research with a space-based telescope? Sounds unlikely? Perhaps today, since there's only one available, and NASA has it booked pretty solid. However, this is about to change. The Canadian Space Agency just signed a contract to launch Canada's first space telescope, is scheduled to be launched in October 2002. If successful, millions of astronomers worldwide will have access to a more humble version of NASA's Hubble via the internet. It is scheduled to be launched in October 2002 as part of a multiple payload mission from Plesetsk, Russia, on an SS-19 based launch vehicle called Rockot. The SS-19 was supposed to be destroyed as part of an Arms reduction treaty so why not get some use out of it?" And it's so cute, it looks like mod furniture.
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The Humble Space Telescope More

The Humble Space Telescope

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  • Wow... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mdemeny ( 35326 ) on Monday December 24, 2001 @10:12AM (#2747303) Homepage
    This can be done with such a small telescope (15cm aperture) thanks to new Canadian attitude control technology.

    Amazing... the same stuff that keeps us polite make satellites small! Wonders never cease...

    • No, it wasn't a typo. I think its spin, I'm not quite sure though, but I've seen the word used before when talking about sattalies.

    • Re:Wow... (Score:2, Informative)

      by MindStalker ( 22827 )
      From dictionary.com
      3.The orientation of an aircraft's axes relative to a reference line or plane, such as the horizon.
      4.The orientation of a spacecraft relative to its direction of motion.
    • Actually, the tech specs page [astro.ubc.ca] sounds like it is translated from the original french.

      Only so long as we do not get the equivalent of the Holy Grail in Outer Space. Although that could be fun in itself.

  • Stand On Guard (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by Proaxiom ( 544639 )
    And with the value of the Canadian dollar as it is, it will be dirt-cheap for Americans to buy time on it.

    You can get an hour for a bowl of poutine and a few strips of back-bacon.

    Fair warning, of course, this is just a small part of the grand Canadian master plan to take over the world. [standonguard.com]

    • About the CDN$ being 'cheap'...

      Our dollar is not as 'weak' as you suggest. It is a case of the US$ being strong && our constant comparison against *it*.

      All currencies are 'off' against the US$.

      This is about to change w/ the into of the EURO... as it will be seen as a 'second' bell-weather currenty. It (the euro) will also be set against a value in prescious metals.

  • ...I'm sure that is one Application Service Provider for the net that will actually make a profit...

  • Russion Rockets (Score:2, Informative)

    by ViceClown ( 39698 )
    If anyone's interested there's a great article in last month's Wired that talks about how Russia is using their rockets to make some ca$h launching other people's satellites. Seems to be working pretty well too!
  • Ummm, is it me or does this thing look like one of those 126 cartridge cameras Kodak sold to everyone with a paper route in the seventies?

    Wow, THAT brings back some memories...
  • Guys, this isn't going to be rented by the hour to amateur astronomers (or amateur spy satellite operators). And this isn't going to be competing with Hubble either.

    I think the story submitter spent too long as a moderator.

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)

      by frank249 ( 100528 ) on Monday December 24, 2001 @11:58AM (#2747541)
      One of the team leaders was on a CBC radio science show. He said that while the $3 billion Hubble was designed to be good at many different observation tasks, the MOST will be great in only a few limited tasks. It would be, as noted in the proposal STELLAR SEISMOLOGY FROM SPACE [astro.ubc.ca], ironic if an optical telescope only 15 cm across, armed only with a broadband photometer and with a budget of only about Cdn$12M, could probe the cores of stars and set a limit on the age of the Universe thus shedding new light on a fundamental question in cosmology.

      He also said that an unprecedented amount of time will be allocated to amateur observer projects through a public outreach programme [astro.ubc.ca].

      After MOST achieves its primary scientific goals, we plan to give the Canadian public a chance to make observations with this unique space observatory. In conjunction with the RASC (Royal Astronomical Society of Canada) [www.rasc.ca], an Amateur Observers' Contest will be held. Amateur astronomers and students will be able to submit observing proposals for MOST, with the technical support of Canadian astronomers.

      The MOST Project also plans to spread information about our project and its science through the Pacific Space Centre [pacific-sp...ntre.bc.ca] in Vancouver, B.C.
    • I understand the exchange rate with Canadian currency, but I still don't believe your average Joe Slashdotter is going to be able to afford much time on this thing.

  • Hubble data is available to the masses! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24, 2001 @11:01AM (#2747414)
    As a former HST employee, I just wanted to let you know that the astronomical data from the Hubble Space Telescope is available online to anyone who wants access! Of course, astronomers have a certain time period before their data becomes available to give them a chance to analyze it first. It used to be a year, I believe. After that, it's available from http://archive.stsci.edu/hst/search_retrieve.html. That page should have all the info needed to start.

    Happy stargazing!
    • But the problem is that I'm not the one who decides where hubble is looking, the astronomers that have been allocated time on Hubble's schedule are the ones who decide. So all I get is to see what other people wanted to look at.

      I want to look straight at the moon with Hubble... put that damn 'moon landing conspiracy theory' to rest once and for all... I'm sure Hubble could see the damn flag... or even the foot prints...
    • The web page that you cite mostly gives tabular data. (In some ways, data from the Hipparcos project is preferable to that.)

      People who are interested in photographic images from the Hubble Space Telescope would likely be better browsing those available from the Hubble Heritage Project [stsci.edu]. They're incredible!


      --When everyone uses Windows, and Windows contains government spyware, we will be in the world's first true invincible police state.

      • The web page that you cite mostly gives tabular data. (In some ways, data from the Hipparcos project is preferable to that.)

        Well... that "tabular data" was the one used to make those wonderfull images you mention, that is: after much pholoshop retouching. I would say those images are more a product of human imagination than of the telescope itself :-)

        If you wan't the raw data to make scientific analysis you are definetly better using the original *.fits files.



  • I heard they are going to have to keep it in geo-sync orbit with Canada so they can finally begin studying Celine Dion's giant camel toe.

  • Get your poles and speak out your grievances here.

  • It gets better (Score:3, Interesting)

    by s20451 ( 410424 ) on Monday December 24, 2001 @12:12PM (#2747568) Journal
    To save costs, this thing was designed and built by students at Canadian universities. At the University of Toronto, a graduate student taking AER 1520H [utoronto.ca] would have directly participated in the design of MOST. I have some friends who worked on this project ...
  • ...as opposed to the old Canadian attitude control technology, viz. the excellent products made by Molson, Labatts, etc.

    I never objected to the previous generation, but one must salute progress I suppose. :)
  • IMO comparing this and the HST is misleading. They may be both telescopes, they may both be on satellites and they may both be in orbit (or, eventually be) but they are very different devices.

    The diffraction limit of a telescope is proportional to the size of it's aperture - the size of the 'end' where the light goes in. Basically, the more light you can capture the more you can see: generally, very faint things are hard to see. The resolving power of a telescope is believed to be limited by the diffraction limit. (I may of course be wrong, I'm not a qualified astronomer - I've only just began.)

    Ground based telescopes are considerably larger and, if there wasn't kilometres of air between it and the near-vacuum of space, would have much greater resolving power than the HST.

    At the time the HST was launched, there was a need to 'see' without the atmosphere being in the way. It has been useful. Modern ground based telescopes using things like adaptive optics can see things which the HST can't - don't underestimate the resolving power of a telescope on the ground compared to the HST. The HST is still very useful, even AO doesn't correct 'perfectly', but then the HST optics are not perfect either: those spikes that come off the center of the stars aren't supposed to be there. They're called diffraction spikes and I'm lead to believe they're caused by the telescopes structure.

    The MOST will be a useful tool, but it's a tool for a purpose and as a general telescope I'm not confident that it would compare well to the HST or ground based telescopes.

    At the rate ground based telescopes are improving, don't expect the additional cost of producing general telescopes like the HST to be met often - but I'd expect more devices with specific purposes (for instance, X-Ray astronomy which is quite scary - I've been told that a handful (5) of photons is a good detection!)

    Ian Woods

  • bs (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There have been many space telescopes... depending on which wavelength range you are talking about. The author seems to be writing about visible wavelengths... even there, there was a telescope flown on the shuttle and there are plans for one on the space station. But Chandra, SIRTF (space infrared telescope facility), COBE, Hipparcos (sp?), and the CGO (Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory) were all space-based telescopes.

    Of more interest to us astronomy-types is the latest go-ahead given by NASA to Kepler [spaceflightnow.com] which is a space-based telescope that will look for Earth-like planets around other stars.

    Joe from berkeley.
  • For a project that is geared towards non-professionals, see the Internation Space Station Amateur Telescope [issat.org] Project. It is being designed and put together with volunteers from around the world with the help of the Astronomical League [astroleague.org]... and they need ALL the help they can get.

    Slashdotters should get involved and use Open Source to help make it happen.



  • This may be somewhat off-topic.

    But China is planning a "SETI" kinda project - and search for the LGM.

    Can anyone tell me if the project would be opened for everyone to participate?
  • So how about a large array telescope based on a million web cams and small telescopes linked together over the internet? Give it a shot and let me know.
  • Hmm. I remember watching a story on the local news about canadas `first science sat.` a few days ago. However, it was NOT a telescope. Was a sat. to investigate the ozone layer depletition over primarily northern canada.

    The articals linked seem rather old? hmm. Not sure if someone has mentioned, but something here isn't right.
    • The Press Release" [astro.ubc.ca] was dated 20 Nov 2001 but MOST will not be launched until Oct 2002. My post was accepted in Nov but was delayed in posting due to a bug in the database which showed its date as 31 Dec 1968. I emailed Hemos and he fixed it Christmas eve.

      The Canadian Space Agency [astro.ubc.ca] describes MOST as a next generation microsatellite that will be the world's smallest astronomical space telescope, capable of measuring the ages of stars in our galaxy and perhaps even unlocking mysteries of the universe itself.. You are probally reffering to SCISAT1 [space.gc.ca] on which will be the MAESTRO instrument (Measurements of Aerosol Extinction in the Stratosphere and Troposphere Retrieved by Occultation). SCISAT1 is due for launch in Dec 2002. There are other projects here [space.gc.ca].
  • Some of frank249's comments are misleading.

    First off, the MOST (Microgravity and Oscillations of Stars) telescope is not "a more humble version of Hubble". The Hubble space telescope is a more-or-less general purpose intrument. By contrast, MOST has a narrow focus [astro.ubc.ca]: to make photometric measurements of tiny stellar oscillations. This is something that Hubble may not actually be properly equipped to do, and even if it is, its science mission is much more generic, and no observer could get so much HST time for a such a narrow-focus subject as MOST's.

    Secondly, there are not "millions of astronomers" in the world! (at least not professional astronomers...) There are a few thousands at most...

    • I take umbrage that you would say my comments are misleading. From Oxford dictionary: humble >adjective (humbler, humblest) 1 having or showing a modest or low estimate of one's own importance. 2 of low rank. 3 of modest pretensions or dimensions.

      The MOST as described in the project proposal - STELLAR SEISMOLOGY FROM SPACE [astro.ubc.ca] is a 15 cm optical telescope with a broadband photometer. While the Hubble is larger (2.4m telescope) it has a number of instruments such as the Wide Field Planetary Camera [sciencepresse.qc.ca] with a role of trying to investigate the age of the universe.

      So it is literally true that the MOST is a more humble version of the Hubble as they are both space telescopes trying to investigate the age of the universe.

      As for your second comment, one of the MOST's team leaders was on a CBC radio science show and he said that in addition to the images available through the web site(like hubble), an unprecedented amount of time will be allocated to amateur observer projects through a public outreach programme [astro.ubc.ca]. He also said that the project could last for over ten years. Now it is hard to say exactly how many astronomers(professional, amatuer, casual) will use data from MOST but it is safe to say that many will and the Canadian Space Agency will be getting good value from its $12 million(cdn) investment.

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