[meteorite-list] World's Largest Digital Camera Installed on Maui Telescope

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 15:05:37 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200709042205.PAA24296_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/info/press-releases/GPC/gigapixel_camera-8-07.html

For Immediate Release, Friday August 31, 2007

Contacts:

Dr. Nick Kaiser
Principal Investigator, Pann-STARRS
Institute for Astronomy
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Honolulu, HI 96822
1-808-956-8560
kaiser at ifa.hawaii.edu

Dr. Rolf-Peter Kudritzki
Director
Institute for Astronomy
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Karen Rehbock
Assistant to the Director
Institute for Astronomy
University of Hawaii at Manoa
1-808-956-6829
rehbock at ifa.hawaii.edu

World's Largest Digital Camera Installed on Maui Telescope

The world's largest and most advanced digital camera has been
installed on the Pan-STARRS-1 (PS1) telescope on Haleakala, Maui.
Built at the University of Hawaii at Manoa's Institute for Astronomy
in Honolulu, the gigapixel camera will capture images that will be
used to scan the skies for killer asteroids, and to create the most
comprehensive catalog of stars and galaxies ever produced.

"This is a truly giant instrument," explained astronomer John Tonry,
who led the team that developed the new camera. "It allows us to
measure the brightness of the sky in 1.4 billion places
simultaneously. We get an image that is 38,000 by 38,000 pixels in
size, or about 200 times larger than you get in a high-end consumer
digital camera. It's also extremely sensitive: in a typical
observation we will be able to detect stars that are 10 million times
fainter than can be seen with the naked human eye."

The camera is a key component of the Pan-STARRS project, which is
designed to search the sky for objects that move or vary. When fully
operational, each patch of sky visible from Hawaii will be
photographed automatically at least once a week. Powerful computers
at the Maui High Performance Computer Center will scrutinize each
image for the minuscule changes that could signal a previously
undiscovered asteroid. Other computers will combine the data from
several images, calculate the orbit of the asteroid, and send warning
messages if the asteroid has any chance of colliding with Earth
during the next century.

The silicon chips at the heart of the camera were developed in
collaboration with Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. They contain advanced circuitry that makes
instantaneous corrections for any image shake caused by Earth's
turbulent atmosphere. The image area, which is about 16 inches (40
cm) across, contains 60 identical silicon chips, each of which
contains 64 independent imaging circuits. Splitting the image area
into about 4,000 separate regions in this way has three advantages:
data can be recorded more quickly, "dazzling" of the image by a very
bright star is confined to a small region, and any defects in the
chips only affect only a small part of the image area.

So much data will be produced by the camera that the team in Manoa
has had to develop novel ways to handle the deluge. Electronics
engineer Peter Onaka led the team that designed an ultrafast
480-channel control system, while a group led by astronomer Eugene
Magnier developed the software that is able to analyze the thousands
of gigabytes of data that the camera will produce each night.

"This camera is an incredibly complex instrument, and getting it
working has been a magnificient achievement by IfA scientists and
engineers. The Pan-STARRS project will revolutionize many areas of
astronomy," said IfA Director Rolf-Peter Kudritzki.

For more information:
http://pan-starrs.ifa.hawaii.edu/public/
http://pan-starrs.ifa.hawaii.edu/public/design-features/cameras.html

QuickTimeVideo:
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/info/press-releases/GPC/GPCInternet.mov (115 Mb)
(Video by Callie McNew, IfA)

PICTURE CAPTIONS

Photo 1. Electronics engineer Peter Onaka (left) and astronomer John
Tonry assemble the Pan-STARRS gigapixel camera. Photo by Richard
Wainscoat.

Photo 2. The Pan-STARRS gigapixel camera. Photo by Richard Wainscoat.

Photo 3. Scientific instrument technician Louis Robertson works on
the Pan-STARRS gigapixel camera. Photo by Peter Onaka.

Photo 4. Astronomer John Tonry inspects the Pan-STARRS gigapixel
camera. Photo by Richard Wainscoat.

The Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii conducts
research into galaxies, cosmology, stars, planets, and the sun. Its
faculty and staff are also involved in astronomy education, deep
space missions, and in the development and management of the
observatories on Haleakala and Mauna Kea.

Established in 1907 and fully accredited by the Western Association
of Schools and Colleges, the University of Hawaii is the state's sole
public system of higher education. The UH System provides an array of
undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees and community
programs on 10 campuses and through educational, training, and
research centers across the state. UH enrolls more than 50,000
students from Hawaii, the U.S. mainland, and around the world.

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Received on Tue 04 Sep 2007 06:05:37 PM PDT