NASA Christens the Spitzer Space Telescope

LMCBoy writes "NASA today renamed the Space Infrared Telescope Facility to the Spitzer Space Telescope, after a great scientist. The renaming coincides with the release of the beautiful first science images from the telescope, which was launched in August."

wow!

[theMerovingian]

In addition to space astronomy, Spitzer's work greatly advanced knowledge in other fields, including stellar dynamics, plasma physics, and thermonuclear fusion.

He must have stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night!

Nice telescope, but bad name

[MagikSlinger]

A target for AC Troll jokes:
* Spitz-or swallows?

At any rate, I'm still waiting for the much vaunted "Ground telescopes are better" crowd to start posting. Since most of the big discoveries are coming from the space based observatories, it's getting harder and harder to argue that "image clarity" and magnification are the end all and be all of Telescope judgement.

Re:Nice telescope, but bad name

[LMCBoy]

Magnification? Nobody cares about magnification.

Only angular resolution (a.k.a. "image clarity"), spectral coverage, and aperture size matter, really. Angular resolution is generally better from space because of the lack of atmospheric distortions (but with adaptive optics, ground telescopes are closing the gap). Spectral coverage is better in space, at least for those regions of the spectrum for which the atmosphere is not transparent (including big chunks of the IR spectrum, which Spitzer will address nicely). Aperture size is better from the ground, because it is so much cheaper to build big telescopes on Earth.

angular resolution clarification

[zwanglos]

To call angular resolution "image clarity" is greatly oversimplifying things. Angular resolution is a product of the size of the dish and the wavelength of the light observed. (Thus spectral coverage is not distinct from angular resolution). The atmosphere does pose a problem, but building the telescopes at higher elevations can greatly reduce distortion.

Extremely high angular resolution can be achieved on earth by linking up several telescopes. For instance, the VLBI [space.com] technique created a telescope spanning 5,280 miles- with enough resolving power to, "sit in New York and be able to see the dimples on a golf ball in Los Angeles."

Space telescopes are great, but until it becomes cheaper to get large telescopes into orbit or on the moon nothing beats the basement bargain earth telescope.

Re:angular resolution clarification

[LMCBoy]

To call angular resolution "image clarity" is greatly oversimplifying things.

I wouldn't say greatly. Angular resolution is how well one can distinguish small angular sizes in the image. It is strongly related to the concept of image "sharpness" or "clarity".

The atmosphere does pose a problem, but building the telescopes at higher elevations can greatly reduce distortion.

Yeah, and with adaptive optics, you do even better, like I said.

Extremely high angular resolution can be achieved on earth by lin

Re:angular resolution clarification

[barakn]

VLBI is great for radio telescopes, but even regular, non-VLB interferometry is very difficult in the infrared, and all but impossible (with current tech) in the optical.

Hang on there. Astronomical interferometry with visible light has been going on since Albert Michelson's measurements of the angular diameters of Jupiter's moon in 1890 and 1891. Perhaps you're talking about imaging interferometry. Even in that case, imaging of simple systems such as binary stars has already occurred.

Re:angular resolution clarification

[LMCBoy]

I'm talking about the fact that there are several ground-based observatories that consist of multiple telescopes (Keck [hawaii.edu], Magellan [ociw.edu], VLT [eso.org], LBT [arizona.edu]), and that one of the goals of this design is interferometry. None of these telescopes is currently planning on doing optical interferometry, because it's just too hard. They're all working on infrared interferometry, and even that is very difficult to accomplish. Especially with mirrors mounted independently, as all except the LBT are.

Re:angular resolution clarification

[Eccles]

Extremely high angular resolution can be achieved on earth by linking up several telescopes.

Would this work in space as well as on earth, or is this more for distortion correction than combination of optics?

Yeah Spitzer

[BortQ]

Thank god for Eliot Spitzer [nytimes.com]. He's truly a champion of the people.

I say we name everything after him.

Its a shame...

[beefneck9]

3 observatories in the sky ( the forth 'Great Observatory' Compton has already splashed down), and with each one covering a different part of the spectrum, it'll be interesting to see how NASA plays it out. It is a shame that NASA has to consider pulling their biggest PR success off of station and burn it away, see Hubble to retire [cnn.com]. True a replacement is in the works, but Hubble and Chandra, and now Spitzer, are all NASA and the US space program really have going for them right now. Sure it cost mucho $$$ to reload propellant onto these rigs, but maybe someone should find a way to keep these scopes up there. In times when our space program needs dreamers, thinkers, and risk-takers, a good deal of the general public lacks the intestinal fortitude and dedication needed to make progress. Spitzer and the other 2 great observatories help hold the line till we gain momentum. And no, the Space Station cannot accomplish as much with the troubles [cnn.com] it is experiencing.

Re:Its a shame...

[LMCBoy]

FYI, space telescopes don't have onboard propellant. If you use propellant, pretty soon the telescope has an "atmosphere" of gas around it, and some of this will condense on the optics. This is Very Bad (tm). Instead, they manipulate internal gyros for attitude adjustment, but have no translational maneuvering ability. In fact, HST needs periodic visits from a space shuttle, in order to boost it back into a higher orbit (it's in such a low orbit, that it decays over the years due to slight atmospheric drag).

Re:Its a shame...

[beefneck9]

Thanks for the correction. I can see where the propellant would be a problem.

It's coolant, not propellant...

[PaulBu]

They've replaced solid hydrogen with a cryocooler on Chandra, I guess (or was it Hubble? Which one is IR?), but I agree that they do not have propellants onboard.

Paul B.

"Science image"

[Scarblac]

Can anyone tell me what a "science image" is supposed to be? Do they have photos of alien scientific experiments?

Re:"Science image"

[Lafe]

Can anyone tell me what a "science image" is supposed to be?

I'm betting what they mean by "science image" is an image on/from which scientific investigation can be done.

Nahh, that's too easy! ;)

Re:"Science image"

[barakn]

Yeah. There was a previous image [caltech.edu], but it was a calibration image taken before the telescope had cooled down to its final operating temperature, and /. jabbered about it [slashdot.org]. To get good quality data they have to subtract a dark-field image (basically a shot taken with the lens cap on) from the image of the subject (and do other stuff), but when the telescope was warm it would have imaged its own heat. Makes for noisy data, which is why they imaged really infrared-bright stars. As we already know stars emit

Pretty Awe Inspiring

[Ohreally_factor]

I'm going to sign up to be an organ donor first thing tomorrow.