Data From Infrared Telescope Exceeds Expectations

Uosdwis writes "It's just Day 10 for the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, and it is producing data! This is only a calibration image, but look at this data set. "We're extremely pleased, because these first images have exceeded our expectations," said Dr. Michael Werner. This data is from IRAC at the shorter wavelengths as the telescope is still cooling. The official press release here."

Why Infrared?

[Lacertus]

Anyone care to enlighten a novice astromomer in the benefits of using infrared in telescopic technology?

There quite a decent summary contained within the sirtf site: Why IR? [caltech.edu]

I'm excited to see the value and quality of images such a thing can produce.

Re:Why Infrared?

[Spamalamadingdong]

It's infrared because too much of the universe's interesting phenomena are either behind dust clouds or at extreme red shifts; this puts most or all of their detectable emissions in the infrared, and we can't learn much about them unless we go looking there.

Re:Why Infrared?

[tommy_teardrop]

On as basic level, it's why fire rescue services use infrared googles going into a burning building. All the smoke obscures the visible light, but the heat (aka infrared light) passes through the smoke more easily.

Of course, using highly calibrated equipment allows you to look in a very specific region of the 'wavelength window', so you can cut out as much of the obscuring material as possible. One man's target is another man's smoke - you pick your wavelength to include or exclude depending on what you

Had to say it...

[Pilferer]

My god, it's full of stars!

Triangle shaped

[Frans Faase]

It seems to me that all the stars look kind of triangle shaped. Because starts are not triangles, it looks like the error is from the optics or the detector slid. I hope it is not some kind of systematic error such as the Hubble telescope had.

Re:Triangle shaped

[Zachary Kessin]

I'm just guessing here, but I would bet it is a function of the mapping from the original data to much lower resolution they posted on the web.

If you look at the high res image much of that goes away. Also note this is a camera working at the very limits of what people can design.

Re:Triangle shaped

[Ignis Flatus]

You might want to take another look at that high res photo. Yes, it is bigger, but the "triangularness" of the stars is still apparent. My guess is that it has some sort of active focusing mirror that needs calibration.

Re:Triangle shaped

[advocate_one]

why would you need an active focusing mirror when there's no atmosphere and the targets are all at infinity???

It's an "engineering" image made just to check that the machine is awake and working. It's got a full shakedown scheduled for it during which I would expect them to actually "calibrate" the optics.

HTH

It's a rough ride to orbit

[Spamalamadingdong]

why would you need an active focusing mirror when there's no atmosphere and the targets are all at infinity???

Because the spacecraft gets jostled and buffetted a lot on the way up, and things aren't always in the same relationship at the end of the trip as they were on the ground. Little things like the absence of gravity influence things too. Being able to tweak stuff after launch is probably a lot cheaper and more reliable than building everything heavy enough to be exactly the same before and after.

Re:It's a rough ride to orbit

[advocate_one]

My definition of "active" mirror is one in which the mirror is continuously driven by means of servo feedback loops etc. during the imaging process. (Commonly used on Earth to compensate for atmospheric disturbances in the light path through Earth's atmosphere during the exposure.) I have no problems with one which is merely active during a calibration phase to compensate for shifting of fittings during launch. I do though, see absolutely no requirement for a continuous focusing feedback loop when out of t

Re:It's a rough ride to orbit

[Dastardly]

If you read the SIRTF site you will note that the instrument is designed to operate at a much cooler temperature than it currently is at. It is designed to be cooled radiatively to 40K in a few weeks, then the liquid helium cools it to 5.5K. So, the blurriness of the image is probably due to the optics being slightly out of alignment at the current temperature. Wait until is gets to 5.5K for the really sharp pictures.

Dastardly

Re:Triangle shaped

[MoobY]

I didn't notice the triangles at first, but the flares on the stars were bugging me. They probably have a similar cause.

Re:Triangle shaped

[Anonymous Coward]

The telescope is still too hot to take proper data. It's probably because of the infrared interference the camera itself is giving off.

Kinda like trying to take a picture of an arc welder with an automatic camera; the arc is so bright, the camera increases the shutter speed, so only the brightest elements have even a chance of showing up on the film.

Re:Triangle shaped

[PD]

Here's the quote from the article about that:

The images were taken as part of an operational test of the infrared array camera. It will take about a month to fully focus and fine-tune the telescope and cool it to optimal operating temperature, so these early images will not be as sharp or polished as future pictures.

Re:Triangle shaped

[Anonymous Coward]

the telescope isn't focussed yet. that's why there funny looking wavey spikes all over the stars, and also most likely also why they appear triangular (the "triangles" are in the raw images, not an effect of downsampling or jpeg-ification). the detectors most certainly did not slide, and there is no significant error in the optics.

the image wasn't a calibration image ... it's what came back when we turned the instrument on for the first time ... a stunning moment. but we've got months of cooling down and

Woo!

[NanoGator]

I can see my house from here!

*sigh* Not funny.

Sorry guys, I got nothin.

Re:Woo!

[NanoGator]

Bet you don't have the balls to tell me that with your registerred nick.

Re:Woo!

[NanoGator]

That's what I thought, bitch.

All that trouble...

[Ignis Flatus]

just to find out that the Universe is warm and fuzzy.

Re:All that trouble...

[Rheingold]

And beige!

Hmmmm....

[Steve Cox]

All I see is stars. Where are the WMD that are supposed to be in Irac?! :)

Re:Hmmmm....

[weeboo0104]

Where are the WMD that are supposed to be in Irac?!

Next to your spell-checker? ;-)

(OT) Spelling 'Iraq', 'Irak', 'Irac', 'Uruk', etc.

[yerricde]

Some countries officially spell the name of that country next to Kuwait differently.

For example, the UNITED STATES CORPORATION [home.iae.nl] (distinct from the united states of America) spells it "New Texas."

Yes, out there

[annisette]

This is great stuff, so much in the articles the past few days about orbits, orbiting craft that I was getting dizzy, to see outer space is refreshing. The next step is to soft land the ISS on the other side of the moon, cover it with an igloo of epoxy and moon dust and start planning the steps to true space exploration. Three days away to deliver supplys can not be that tough.

Re:Yes, out there

[annisette]

Yes, you are correct, it would be an uphill situation, I propose thinking and talking about it as a start. From what I have read the talk from NASA is to go from the ISS to a voyage to mars in 20 years and there is sound commitment. The moon is pretty darn close to just stare at it for 20 years. walk, crawl, run, after Apollo we have crawled back into orbit, perhaps we could walk back to the moon, then the run for mars. Thanks for your reply.

Artifacts

[msheppard]

The triangle shapes are probably an artifact of the sensors. Similar to the lines you see eminating from stars in other telescopes, caused by the hardware of the scope.

I think it's a pretty far leap to compare something liket his which you don't understand to the problems hubble had, which I also bet you didn't understand (they were not "systemic")

The Purpose of IR Astronomy

[Uosdwis]

For those of you who took 'physics' this should be old hat.

There are many different wavelengths of light. Visible light is a very narrow band of the whole light spectrum. Other radiation (X, gamma, UV, IR) work in different parts of the spectrum [caltech.edu], but is still light. Everyone likes the Hubble because it can give us pretty pictures, and truly they are amazing & has made many ground breaking discoveries, but IR can show us much much more.

Why? Because you make a better door than window Einstein. Interstellar space has tons and tons of dirt, which the Hubble can't see through with visible light. IR on the other hand is radiated through it. Just look [caltech.edu] how different the universe is when observed from a different point of view. Orion [caltech.edu] is amazingly different when looked at with IR compared with the visible spectrum. The composition, it's purpose and function is vastly different in IR to 'shed some more light' on things we 'already know'.

And for you cynics, much of this data will be given straight to the community at large, making it truly a public endeavor.

Re:The Purpose of IR Astronomy

[annisette]

Well said, and I along with many can't wait for the results.

Re:The Purpose of IR Astronomy

[snake_dad]

Everyone likes the Hubble because it can give us pretty pictures, and truly they are amazing & has made many ground breaking discoveries, but IR can show us much much more.

It's not just visible light that gives beautiful pictures. Check out this gallery [space.com] of Chandra [nasa.gov] X-ray images.

Re:The Purpose of IR Astronomy

[drinkypoo]

So how do they compensate for the fact that bodies which absorb IR tend to then radiate it in all directions? By using IR imaging alone, how can you tell if an object is an IR source, or if it's just reradiating?

Name?

[Bob Vila's Hammer]

Have they named the telescope yet?

Re:Name?

[Sgt_Jake]

IRT. But if you pretend your in a car and breaking really fast it's more fun... IIIIIIIRRRRRRT!

(I don't really know the name, I'm just making this up...)

Re:Name?

[TMB]

Not officially. There is a name picked out, but it's being kept extremely until the official renaming. Which for most space observatories would have been by now, but apparently the family of the person in question (they're always named after famous dead astronomers) doesn't want it named until it's proven to work... science verification should take place in November, so it'll probably be named in late November.

[TMB]

Asteroids

[iCat]

Is it just me, or do all those 'stars' look like the space ship in Asteroids?

The world should be told!

Grammar Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

"data" is plural, so that should be "Data From Infrared Telescope Exceed Expectations"

Re:Grammar Troll

[tommy_teardrop]

While in the strictest sense, data is the pluralised form of datum, following a running battle with my boss (a grammer whore), I've found many examples in which data is allowed as a 'single mass entity'. eg dictionary.com [reference.com]