Gizmodo: telescopes

Early Spiral Galaxy Captured for the First Time Using Gravitational Lenses

Jesus Diaz — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:00:00 EDT

For the first time ever, scientists have captured an spiral galaxy in its early stages of formation, only two billion years after the Big Bang. This time, however, they haven't used the magic Hubble, but the ten-metre Keck telescope in Hawaii helped by something called gravitational lensing, or Mother Nature's own optical zoom lenses.

A Cosmic Eye is a unique configuration of galaxies in the sky, with one galaxy in the foreground and the other in the background, giving it the appearance of an eye in space. The foreground galaxy— in this case the yellow one, 2.2 billion light years from Earth—acts as the lenses thanks to its gravitational field, which bends the light coming from the background galaxy—in blue, 11 billion light years from Earth. This distortion effect, which was predicted by Einstein theories, has enlarged the early spiral galaxy by eight times.

The technique gives an idea of what would be possible with the next generation of telescopes—the European Extremely Large Telescope and the American Thirty Metre Telescope. [Physorg]

Credit: Cosmic Eye showing the foreground galaxy in yellow at the centre of the image surrounded by the blue arc of the distant galaxy. Credit: Mark Swinbank/Durham University

First Historic Image of Planet 3106 Trillion Miles From Earth

Sean Fallon — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:40:00 EDT

Thanks to the distortion-reducing power of the ALTAIR adaptive optics system on the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, three University of Toronto scientists were able to capture images of the star 1RXS J160929.1-210524 from a distance of about 500 light years away. The image is believed to be the first ever of a planet in an alien solar system around a sun-like star. The discovery is made even more significant because the "planet" lies a tremendous distance away from its parent star—challenging currently accepted theories about star and planet formation. It will take up to 2 years of research to determine whether or not this object is, in fact, tied to the star by gravity. [Gemini via ScienceNews via DVICE]

NASA to Build Giant Telescopes Made of Moon...on the Moon?

Adrian Covert — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:18:15 EDT

NASA researchers claim they've developed a way to create a concrete-like substance, necessary for the production of space telescopes, out of Moon dust. The compound mixes the aforementioned Moon dust with carbon tubes and epoxy to create a dish, which is then coated in aluminum. The researchers have built a 30cm dish using this technique with a moon dust subsitute, but they claim they can create ones between 20-50 meters that would fill entire craters. This claim, however, has its share of detractors.

Daniel Fabricant, an astrophysicist for the Harvard-Smithsonian center thinks that the precision (a fraction of a wavelength of light) required for a telescope of that stature would pose a sizable challenge in making one that large. He also thinks it would be really, really, really expensive. But the leader of NASA's team, Peter Chen, claims that without Moon dust and on-site manufacturing, it would be impossible to get telescopes to the moon.

According to Chen, making a telescope equivalent in size to the Hubble (2.4 meters) on the Moon would require 1300 pounds of Moon dust, 130 pounds of epoxy, 13 pounds of carbon nanotubes and under a gram of aluminum. Now if we could turn those telescopes into lasers and get a little pew pew, we'd be set. [New Scientist]

Massive Steampunk-y Telectroscope Lets You See From New York to London

Benny Goldman — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:00:00 EDT

The Telectroscope is more than a giant telescope—looking through its lens in NYC, you can see all the way to London—and vice versa. These steampunk creations were unveiled today in the two cities to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge. Artist Paul St George's Victorian-style gold and wood trim make the behemoth-size scopes impressive to look at, but the most amazing part is how he claims they work.

St George says in the 19th century his great-grandfather, Alexander Stanhope St George, built a trans-Atlantic tunnel from London to New York which was forgotten by time. The artist discovered his great-grandfather's plans recently and using the diagrams installed parabolic mirrors at both locations that reflect what's happening 3500 miles across the pond. Now, I can't say for sure since I haven't seen the Telectroscope in person, but a picture in the gallery above suggests a more logical explanation that involves built-in webcams and broadband internet sending live video in both directions. Either way, the scope looks fantastic and I can't wait to check it out.

The Telectroscopes are on display 24/7 until June 15. New Yorkers can check out the Brits by heading to Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn; Londoners will need to head to Tower Bridge if they want their fix of spying on the Yanks. [Telectroscope via Gothamist 1, 2]

Fresnel Telescope Will Spot M-Class Planets 30 Light Years Away

Wilson Rothman — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:45:00 EDT

Scientists might be giving up on the notion of sending ridiculously large pieces of glass into space. Using a Fresnel-zone lens instead, astronomers at Observatoire Midi Pyrenees in France propose to take extremely high-contrast images at vast distances without a large lens or mirror. A 30-meter Fresnel telescope will provide visual confirmation of Earth-like planets up to 30 light years away. Since it can also observe a wide spectrum range including UV and IR, it can do follow-up detection of life signs, too. The main advantage of the Fresnel telescope is, of course, the fact that it's a perforated sheet of roll-up metal instead of heavy, breakable glass. But there are some major reasons it's not super easy to just whip up one of these telescopes in the machine shop:

Though a Fresnel sensor has the same sharpness as a glass lens, it only collects about 10% of the light. That's why the sheet has to be really really big, like the 30-meter one mentioned above. Even worse, the Fresnel lens brings light to focus far away from its own surface. A 30-meter panel may require a spaceship with secondary lens and camera located several kilometers away to line up within a few millimeters to capture the image precisely on camera. That's some tricky flying, and would require a lot of energy, especially when the panel itself is constantly tilting to look at new, wondrous things. [New Scientist via Kurzweil AI]

Celestron SkyScout Scope Makes You a True Space Cadet

Charlie White — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 21:45:17 EST

Match Made in the Heavens: You saw the Celestron SkyScout a while ago, and now here's a scope on which to mount it. See galaxies with the SkyScout Scope's high-power eyepiece, or get your bearings with its included its low-power counterpart. But It'll Cost Ya: To use this with the excellent $400 Celestron SkyScout spotter, you have to buy one of those, too.

The $299 telescope, now available, works like a champ with the SkyScout piggybacking on top. . If you have your own telescope, get the SkyScout Connect, that aquaints your own scope with this easy-to-use spotter. [Celestron]