![]() The Hubble Space Telescope cannot observe Jupiter continuously for more than about 50 minutes, because its view is regularly blocked by the Earth during Hubble’s 96-minute orbit. Conventional adaptive optics systems using a single Jupiter moon as reference cannot monitor Jupiter for so long because the moon moves too far from the planet. They were able to take a series of 265 snapshots. MAD allowed the researchers to observe Jupiter for almost two hours on 16 and 17 August 2008, a record duration, according to the observing team. And in fact, were it not for MAD, we would not have been able to perform these amazing observations.” “While regular adaptive optics provides excellent correction in a small field of view, MAD provides good correction over a larger area of sky. “This type of adaptive optics has a big advantage for looking at large objects, such as planets, star clusters or nebulae,” says lead researcher Franck Marchis, from UC Berkeley and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, USA. The new images of Jupiter prove the value of the advanced technology used by MAD, which uses two or more guide stars instead of one as references to remove the blur caused by atmospheric turbulence over a field of view thirty times larger than existing techniques. Astronomers used a new device called the Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics Demonstrator (MAD) prototype instrument mounted on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) And what a result! Just take a look at that gorgeous image…And this new image reveals changes in Jupiter’s smog-like haze, probably in response to a planet-wide upheaval more than a year ago.īeing able to correct wide field images for atmospheric distortions has been the dream of scientists and engineers for decades. The Very Large Telescope (VLT) performed a record two-hour observation of Jupiter using a breakthrough technique to remove atmospheric blur. And now, a new image-correction technique has delivered the sharpest whole-planet ground-based picture ever. But astronomers are crafty people, so they’ve come up with ways to mitigate the distortion that Earth’s thick atmosphere causes for ground based telescopes (from which stars appear to twinkle). Everyone loves twinkling stars and moonlit nights-EXCEPT astronomers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |