From: UFO UpDates - Toronto <post.nul>
Date: Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:26:35 -0500
Archived: Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:26:35 -0500
Subject: Window On Universe Via Internet-Observatory




Source: The Daily Galaxy - New York, New York, USA

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/03/futuristic-inte.html

March 04, 2009


Internet-Observatory To Provide Movie-Like Window On Universe
Posted by Casey Kazan

"LSST is truly an Internet telescope, which will put terabytes
of data each night into the hands of anyone that wants to
explore it. The 8.4-metre LSST telescope and the 3-gigapixel
camera are thus a shared resource for all humanity =97 the
ultimate network peripheral device to explore the universe."

                            --Bill Gates Microsoft Co-Founder


The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, partially funded by $30
million from Microsoft founders Bill gates and Charles Simyoni,
the developer of Word and Excel, is projected for 'first light'
in 2014 in Chile's Atacama Desert -the world's Southern
Hemisphere space-observatory mecca. The 8.4-meter telescope will
be able to survey the entire visible sky deeply in multiple
colors every week with its 3-billion pixel digital camera. The
telescope will probe the mysteries of dark matter and dark
energy, and it will open a movie-like window on objects that
change or move rapidly: exploding supernovae, potentially
hazardous near-Earth asteroids and distant Kuiper Belt objects.


"What a shock it was when Galileo saw in his telescope the
phases of Venus, or the moons of Jupiter, the first hints of a
dynamic universe," Simonyi said. "Today, by building a special
telescope-computer complex, we can study this dynamism in
unprecedented detail. LSST will produce a database suitable for
answering the wide range of pressing questions: What is dark
energy? What is dark matter? How did the Milky Way form? What
are the properties of small bodies in the solar system? Are
there potentially hazardous asteroids that may impact the Earth,
causing significant damage? What sort of new phenomena have yet
to be discovered?"


The telescope will be constructed on Cerro Pachon, a mountain in
northern Chile. Its design of three large mirrors and three
refractive lenses in a camera leads to a 10-square-degree field
of view with excellent image quality. The telescope's 3,200-
megapixel camera will be the largest digital camera ever
constructed.

The project, known as LSST, exemplifies characteristics Simonyi
and Gates have exhibited in their careers =97 innovation,
excitement of discovery, cutting-edge technology and a creative
energy that pushes the possibilities of human achievement.

LSST is designed to be a public facility. The database and
resulting catalogues will be made available to the public with
no proprietary restrictions. A sophisticated data management
system will provide easy access, enabling simple queries from
individual users. The public will actively share the adventure
of discovery.

The wide-field imaging telescope now known as the LSST was
originally designed at the UA by Regents' Professor of Astronomy
Roger Angel. UA astronomer Philip Pinto is responsible for
simulating the telescope's operation to develop new scientific
strategies and to ensure that the instrument works as intended.
The UA was one of the four founding members of the LSST
Corporation in spring 2003.

The project has received two major gifts: $20 million from the
Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences and $10 million from
Microsoft founder Bill Gates. The gifts enable the construction
of the project's three largest mirrors. Production for the two
largest mirrors is now underway at The University of Arizona's
Steward Observatory Mirror Lab.


[Thanks to Bill Bro for the lead]



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