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Although the pixel count for consumer cameras continues to rise, they
will all pale in comparison to the 3,200-megapixel Large Synoptic
Survey Telescope (LSST) camera. Although the enormous astronomical
camera has yet to be built, last week the U.S. Department of Energy gave
its approval for the project to proceed to the next phase of
development. This means that a detailed engineering design can begin,
along with a production schedule and budget. If everything goes
according to plan, construction on what will be the world’s largest
digital camera should begin in 2014.
The three-mirrored camera will be an essential part of the telescope,
needless to say, surveying the entire visible night sky twice every
week. It will take over 800 panoramic images every night, gathering
about 6 million gigabytes of data a year. Its light-gathering power will
be amongst the highest in the world, allowing it to image faint
celestial objects using relatively short exposures.
It was designed at the SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center)
National Accelerator Laboratory, which describes what the camera will be
doing as “equivalent of shooting roughly 800,000 images with a regular
eight-megapixel digital camera every night, but of much higher quality
and scientific value.”
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A rendering of the LSST camera, with a person for sca |
A total of 189 sensors and over 3 tons (2.7 tonnes) of components
will be tightly packed into its cylindrical body. Work has already begun
on the telescope’s 8.4-meter (27.5-foot) primary mirror, at the final
site of the observatory on the Cerro Pachón ridge in northern Chile.
Plans for the LSST
include studies on things such as dark energy and dark matter,
detection of near-Earth asteroids, and analysis of the structure of the
galaxy. Data will be available to anyone with internet access.
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An illustrated diagram of the LSST camera
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