November 18, 2010 at 16:43Photoreport from the construction of the 570-megapixel camera
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The world's largest device for searching for dark matter will soon be ready to go. The construction of a four-ton Dark Energy Camera worth $ 35 million will be completed in a month at the Fermilab laboratory in Illinois. There they are now testing it by installing it in a mount from a telescope (the mount assembly is in the video). And in full force, the camera will work after installing Victor Blanco on the telescope in the mountains of Chile, in October 2012.
The participants in this project are going to measure the speed of 300 million galaxies in the southern hemisphere of the starry sky to test the theory of the existence of dark matter.
The Dark Energy Survey project and this 570-megapixel camera have already been discussed on Habré , and now we offer to see the photo report directly from the construction site.
The camera has been assembled since 2008 by 120 astronomers, engineers and physicists.
The image capture unit (imager) accommodates 74 individual sensors with a total resolution of 570 MP.
Today, there is only one camera with a higher resolution in the world: the 1400 MP Pan-STARRS telescope, which is looking for dangerous asteroids approaching the Earth. But Dark Energy Camera is unmatched in weight. The image capture unit alone weighs about 910 kg.
Both “competitors” can easily be put to shame by the 3200 MP Large Synoptic Survey Telescope planned for construction , which will also search for traces (effects) of dark matter. The only problem is that there is no money for its construction.
In the photo, the technician checks the matrix of 74 CCD sensors. Twelve of these sensors have a lower resolution (in the amount of about 53 MP), they are needed for pointing and focusing the telescope. The remaining 62 sensors (519 MP) directly take photos of galaxies.
All CCD sensors are non-serial, and are made to special order in accordance with the necessary characteristics - so that they are as sensitive as possible in the infrared range (in which it is supposed to remove the offset of distant galaxies).
Approximately such a picture is issued by all sensors together.
Each night, the camera will take about 400 full-size photographs, each with a capacity of 1 GB. From a substation in Chile, they will be immediately sent for processing and analysis to the National Center for Supercomputer Applications in Illinois.
Heavy parts of the camera will not hang on the telescope itself. For them, engineers built a separate 3.4-meter “case”. In the photo below you can see the block with sensors (left), the main optical focusing system (right) and two of the six pneumatic tubes for pointing the camera.
The Victor Blanco telescope is located in one of the most advanced observatories in the southern hemisphere - the Inter-American Observatory of Sierro Tololo in Chile. The scale of the telescope shows two people (red circle) and the installation site of Dark Energy Camera (green circle).
Details of the heaviest camera in the world inspire respect. Before contacting the sensors, the light passes through four filters with a width of 61 cm. They filter the range of transmitted waves so that nothing extra gets on the sensors. In the infrared range, the sensors will actually make a black and white picture. Then, scientists and artists realistically paint it in different colors using scientific methods (they specifically calculate which color is most logical for waves of a certain length).
The following photograph shows perhaps the largest aperture in the world and aperture and shutter curtains. Two steel curtains are hidden around the perimeter: they come in motion every time the camera takes a picture. The curtains do not move too fast, because shooting stars requires a long exposure of 1-2 minutes.
And here’s the homemade lens of the lens.
The optical system of the camera consists of five lenses, which should focus the image from a 4-meter telescope mirror. After installation, the optician will be able to scan an area of the sky, 20 times larger in area than the moon.
The following illustration shows the complete assembly. It will look something like this after the end of the assembly this year.
They hope to finish testing the camera in February 2011.
The image capture unit will be sent to Chile on a separate plane in June 2011, the rest will be transported through New York by ship in cargo containers. After passing through the Panama Canal and unloading on the coast of Chile, the camera parts will be transported by trucks to the mountains, where the observatory is located (about 360 km north of Santiago).
The telescope is central to the observatory (a brilliant building in the center). The camera will take pictures of 525 nights for five years. Ideally, convincing evidence will be obtained about whether dark matter exists or not, and whether Einstein's general theory of relativity is suitable for describing gravity at the macroscale of the universe.
The participants in this project are going to measure the speed of 300 million galaxies in the southern hemisphere of the starry sky to test the theory of the existence of dark matter.
The Dark Energy Survey project and this 570-megapixel camera have already been discussed on Habré , and now we offer to see the photo report directly from the construction site.
The camera has been assembled since 2008 by 120 astronomers, engineers and physicists.
The image capture unit (imager) accommodates 74 individual sensors with a total resolution of 570 MP.
Today, there is only one camera with a higher resolution in the world: the 1400 MP Pan-STARRS telescope, which is looking for dangerous asteroids approaching the Earth. But Dark Energy Camera is unmatched in weight. The image capture unit alone weighs about 910 kg.
Both “competitors” can easily be put to shame by the 3200 MP Large Synoptic Survey Telescope planned for construction , which will also search for traces (effects) of dark matter. The only problem is that there is no money for its construction.
In the photo, the technician checks the matrix of 74 CCD sensors. Twelve of these sensors have a lower resolution (in the amount of about 53 MP), they are needed for pointing and focusing the telescope. The remaining 62 sensors (519 MP) directly take photos of galaxies.
All CCD sensors are non-serial, and are made to special order in accordance with the necessary characteristics - so that they are as sensitive as possible in the infrared range (in which it is supposed to remove the offset of distant galaxies).
Approximately such a picture is issued by all sensors together.
Each night, the camera will take about 400 full-size photographs, each with a capacity of 1 GB. From a substation in Chile, they will be immediately sent for processing and analysis to the National Center for Supercomputer Applications in Illinois.
Heavy parts of the camera will not hang on the telescope itself. For them, engineers built a separate 3.4-meter “case”. In the photo below you can see the block with sensors (left), the main optical focusing system (right) and two of the six pneumatic tubes for pointing the camera.
The Victor Blanco telescope is located in one of the most advanced observatories in the southern hemisphere - the Inter-American Observatory of Sierro Tololo in Chile. The scale of the telescope shows two people (red circle) and the installation site of Dark Energy Camera (green circle).
Details of the heaviest camera in the world inspire respect. Before contacting the sensors, the light passes through four filters with a width of 61 cm. They filter the range of transmitted waves so that nothing extra gets on the sensors. In the infrared range, the sensors will actually make a black and white picture. Then, scientists and artists realistically paint it in different colors using scientific methods (they specifically calculate which color is most logical for waves of a certain length).
The following photograph shows perhaps the largest aperture in the world and aperture and shutter curtains. Two steel curtains are hidden around the perimeter: they come in motion every time the camera takes a picture. The curtains do not move too fast, because shooting stars requires a long exposure of 1-2 minutes.
And here’s the homemade lens of the lens.
The optical system of the camera consists of five lenses, which should focus the image from a 4-meter telescope mirror. After installation, the optician will be able to scan an area of the sky, 20 times larger in area than the moon.
The following illustration shows the complete assembly. It will look something like this after the end of the assembly this year.
They hope to finish testing the camera in February 2011.
The image capture unit will be sent to Chile on a separate plane in June 2011, the rest will be transported through New York by ship in cargo containers. After passing through the Panama Canal and unloading on the coast of Chile, the camera parts will be transported by trucks to the mountains, where the observatory is located (about 360 km north of Santiago).
The telescope is central to the observatory (a brilliant building in the center). The camera will take pictures of 525 nights for five years. Ideally, convincing evidence will be obtained about whether dark matter exists or not, and whether Einstein's general theory of relativity is suitable for describing gravity at the macroscale of the universe.