LSST camera completed.
Jacqueline Ramseyer Orrell/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
This is what the world’s largest and best digital camera will capture in 3.2 gigapixels.
One of the world’s newest and largest telescopes, expected to see first light later this year, is set to receive the most powerful camera mankind has ever designed.
Formerly known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, the Rubin Observatory was built alongside the famous Gemini South telescope on the ridge of Cerro Pachón in Chile’s Elqui Valley.
Astronomical film
The largest camera ever built for astronomy, the 3.2 gigapixel Legacy Survey of Space and Time CCD camera, will capture the night sky over the Southern Hemisphere 1,000 times every night in six wavelengths, from ultraviolet to near infrared, for a total of 15 terabytes. He will do this for a decade, essentially creating a 3D astronomical film that will alert astronomers to celestial events in real time. It can take an image in about two seconds and change filters in less than 90 seconds.
It was built by the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California.
“We will soon start producing the greatest film of all time and the most informative map of the night sky ever assembled,” said Željko Ivezić, director of construction of the Rubin Observatory and professor at the University of Washington .
Some think the Rubin Observatory will find a hundred thousand supernovas.
Transient events
It is hoped that by capturing changes in the night sky in exceptional detail, astronomers will discover transient events such as supernovas and learn much more about dark matter and dark energy. It is also likely to catalog 90% of near-Earth objects, such as asteroids, measuring more than 300 meters, and calculate whether they pose a threat to Earth. It will also locate 10,000 primitive objects in the Kuiper Belt, a remote region of the outer solar system beyond the orbit of Neptune.
The 6.5-meter optical telescope in front of the camera will examine the visible sky each week at a much lower level than is currently possible. The camera is the same size as a small car, its lens is three feet wide and weighs 3,000 kilograms (three metric tons). It has 301 custom-designed individual CCD sensors with pixels just 10 microns wide.
On August 18, 2022, SLAC’s LSST camera team moved the L1-L2 lens from its shipping container to a … [+] bracket and rotated it for installation on the camera body.
Jacqueline Ramseyer Orrell/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Billions of stars
“Its images are so detailed that they could detect a golf ball about 15 miles away, while covering a swath of sky seven times wider than the full moon,” said SLAC professor and deputy director Aaron Roodman. of the Rubin Observatory and responsible for the camera program. . “These images depicting billions of stars and galaxies will help unlock the secrets of the universe.”
I wish you clear skies and wide eyes
