You'll need far more than a TV to view this camera's photos

Sep 1, 2015 12:30 GMT  ·  By

Packing an enormous 3.2-gigapixel resolution, and being the size of a small car while weighing more than three tons, the world's most advanced digital camera will go in South America to power the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope or the (LSST).

Assembled at the Department of Energy's SLAC (coming from Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) National Accelerator Laboratory, the camera is the very eye of LSST, built to offer many more details about the surrounding universe and help scientists detect unknown stars and space elements. The plans to build this massive camera have to pass through the final milestone, called Critical Decision 3 before the engineers gather all the components required to build it.

SLAC wants the camera to be active starting in 2022 and photograph the entire visible southern sky every few nights, from atop of a mountain in Chile called Cerro Pachón. It's believed that during its activity it will catalog by far the largest number of stars and galaxies ever observed. One of its main advantages is that it will be able to film the night sky with unprecedented details than any camera before it.

One 3.2-gigapixel photo is about the size of a football stadium

Except the price of the camera, which will be paid for by the DoE, the entire infrastructure and data management system will come mainly from the National Science Foundation.

Apparently, the system behind this incredible camera includes a filter-changing mechanism and shutter that allows the camera to view different wavelengths while being capable of viewing light from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared (0.3-1 μm) wavelengths. To be able to see the full-sky images captured at a 3.2-gigapixel resolution, it would effectively take 1,500 high-definition television screens to display just one picture.

The construction of the new telescope facility began this April in Chile that houses the new LSST telescope. The building will consist of a 2,000-square-foot, 2-story-tall clean room where the observation device will be placed.

The camera will change filers to capture different wavelenghts

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The LSST camera is about the size of a car
The camera will change filers to capture different wavelenghts
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