Distributed Astronomy

prostoalex writes "Scientists at Gemini Observatory are using Internet2 to link telescopes worldwide and receive images that they say are sharper than those coming from Hubble."

Re:Using .NET?!?!

[ceejayoz]

Not only that, but a pro-Microsoft sentence WITHOUT a snide anti-MS note by an editor.

As for the temperature... the flying pigs complaining that it's rather chilly.

Link to news item at observatory

[PD]

right here [gemini.edu]

It is worthwhile to note that the internet link is a separate issue from the sharpness. All the internet link does is allow researchers to use the scopes and return a lot of data quickly, reducing the need to travel to the telescope to observe with it. All of astronomy is moving in this direction, because these very expensive instruments must be utilized efficiently.

The sharpness of this scope comes from the very large mirror (8 meters) and the adaptive optics installed on it. The photos would be just as sharp even without the internet connection.

I remember something similar.

[The_Guv'na]

It was a group of researchers linking several telescopes at a single site together using very precise optics to gain an image equivalent to that of a telescope with a mirror as big as the area "pegged out" by the separate telescopes. The precise optics is the thing I was thinking of when I read this article; they had to combine the images from their telescopes with extreme precision.

But seeing as they have managed to at least partly overcome that difficulty here, great :) What I don't understand is why the telescopes have to be far apart. I'm thinking specifically of the optical system used in the system I saw on TV years ago. Why the heck would a few hundred yards between telescopes matter when viewing an object a few hundred [or more] light years away?

I just get some little inkling it might be related to the principles behind holograms. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Ali

Re:I remember something similar.

[Peter T Ermit]

By linking multiple observatories, you can do neat tricks like interferometry. One advantage you get is that your effective mirror/antenna size becomes considerably larger than the little mirrors/antennae that make up the array -- it's a function of how far apart the antennae are rather than the size of the individual elements, which is why a few hundred yards of separation can make a huge difference. The VLT [eso.org] uses this idea, as does the VLBI [isas.ac.jp]. Holograms are related in the sense that they exploit phase information of light just as interferometers do.

Re:I remember something similar.

[zer0vector]

Its all based on the Rayleigh Criteria, which describes the resolution of an imaging system. Basically theta=1.22*lambda/diameter. Where theta is the smallest resolvable angular separation, and lambda is the wavelenght you are observing at.

CIAO

[bgins]

Chandra Interactive Analysis of Observations (CIAO) also looks like an interesting project:

http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/

It took till now

[TamMan2000]

Is it just me or does this seem pretty obvious? Is there some technical difficulty in doing this that I don't understand?

And on another note:
If they can get hubble quality images from the ground now, what would we be able to see if we had multiple networked space telescopes in orbit?