The Billion-Dollar Telescope Race

Rucking_Fetard

When Warner Brothers animators wanted to include cutting-edge astronomy in a 1952 Bugs Bunny cartoon1 they set a scene at an observatory that looks like Palomar Observatory in California. The then-newly unveiled Hale Telescope, stationed at Palomar, had a 5-meter-diameter mirror, the world’s largest. In 1989, when cartoonist Bill Watterson included a mention of the world’s largest telescope in a “Calvin and Hobbes” cartoon,2 he again set the action at Palomar. Although computers had grown a million times faster during those 38 years, and eight different particle colliders had been built and competed for their field’s top ranking, astronomy’s king of the hill stayed perched on its throne.


This changed in 1992, with the introduction of the Keck telescope and its compound, 10-meter mirror. About a dozen 8-10 meter telescopes have been built since. But it has been more than 20 years since this last quantum leap in telescope technology.



Now, finally, the next generation is coming. Three telescopes are on their way, and the race among them has already begun.

http://nautil.us/issue/11/light/the-billion_dollar-telescope-race

Zubeneschamali

The Great telescope in Birr was the largest in the world for 72 years from 1845 to 1917, when the 100 inch Hooker telescope at Mt. Wilson was finished.

Rucking_Fetard

How the Enormous Mirrors on the World's Largest Telescope Are Made

Ping Chow Chi

When do you think that the first images of another world (larger than a pixel or two) will be captured. Or is the distances involved just two far to capture images more than a pixel or two?

Rucking_Fetard

Making Super-Telescopes Requires Some Creative Engineering

Rucking_Fetard

Gargantuan $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope begins construction in Hawaii

Streets_of Rage 2 Come_On

Work begins on Extremely Large Telescope, will be able to image tiny Earth-like planets from light years away

http: // www .extremetech.com/extreme/195453-work-begins-on-extremely-large-telescope-will-be-able-to-image-tiny-earth-like-planets-from-light-years-away

Cookie_Monster

What about Hubble, does that not count?

Surely it doesn't make that much sense to continue building large telescopes on earth when you can position one above the atmosphere?

Streets_of Rage 2 Come_On

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

What about Hubble, does that not count?

Surely it doesn't make that much sense to continue building large telescopes on earth when you can position one above the atmosphere?

It's replacement is coming soon.

http: // en. wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope

Zubeneschamali

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

What about Hubble, does that not count?

Surely it doesn't make that much sense to continue building large telescopes on earth when you can position one above the atmosphere?

Hubble is very small compared to these monsters, just 2.4 meters (about the same as the Hooker telescope from 1917) and it has cost about €10 billion so far, more than all these colossal next generation telescopes put together.

It will always be easier and cheaper to build a large telescope down here than launch it into orbit, at least until we are all living in semi-detached asteroids.

nokia69

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Hubble is very small compared to these monsters, just 2.4 meters (about the same as the Hooker telescope from 1917) and it has cost about €10 billion so far, more than all these colossal next generation telescopes put together.

It will always be easier and cheaper to build a large telescope down here than launch it into orbit, at least until we are all living in semi-detached asteroids.

Hubble was built to fit inside the shuttle cargo bay so with the launchers being built today a far bigger replacement would be possible, the James Webb telescope will be far better if it ever gets off the ground

the Moon would be a good place for a giant telescope, with less gravity the maximum size can be far bigger

Zubeneschamali

nokia69 wrote: »

Hubble was built to fit inside the shuttle cargo bay so with the launchers being built today a far bigger replacement would be possible

The shuttle cargo bay was frickin enormous, precisely to carry spy satellites the size of Hubble into LEO. There is no active launcher which can carry as big a load to orbit.

The SLS, MCT and Falcon Heavy will all be bigger, when/if they launch.

Capt'n Midnight

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

The shuttle cargo bay was frickin enormous, precisely to carry spy satellites the size of Hubble into LEO. There is no active launcher which can carry as big a load to orbit.

LOL

Hubble is the size of a spy satellite.

Tonnes to LEO
21 Titan IV 21
24.4 Shuttle
28 Delta IV heavy

Hubble only weighed 11 tonnes so could be launched by current US, Russian , Chinese, European , Japanese or Ukrainian rockets.

India isn't quite there yet their 10 tonne to LEO rocket won't launch until next week :P
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Isro-to-test-GSLV-Mk-III-crew-module-on-December-18/articleshow/45444522.cms

and it's carrying a crew module

Capt'n Midnight

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

What about Hubble, does that not count?

Surely it doesn't make that much sense to continue building large telescopes on earth when you can position one above the atmosphere?

Space telescopes are good for wavelengths the atmosphere adsorbs or for very faint objects.

The problem of moving air has been minimised a lot by adaptive optics, lucky aperture, creating artificial reference stars with lasers and other really ingenious techniques.

Hubble has soaked up maybe $10 billion so far for a slightly flawed 2.4m mirror

This is costing 1/6th of that and it's secondary mirror will be 4.2m across.
http://www.space.com/27930-european-extremely-large-telescope-construction-approved.html

The European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), which will feature a light-collecting surface 128 feet (39 meters) wide, has been greenlit for construction atop Cerro Armazones in Chile's Atacama Desert, officials with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced Thursday (Dec. 4).

Zubeneschamali

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

LOL

Hubble is the size of a spy satellite.

Yes, the size of the shuttle bay and the size of the Hubble mirror were both defined by the size of the Keyhole spy satellites, which were as powerful as Hubble, but aimed down at us, not at deep space objects.

And they launched 15 of them.

Capt'n Midnight

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/altitude.png

_Tombstone_

The mountain-top battle over the Thirty Meter Telescope

_Tombstone_

The Giant Magellan Telescope Organisation breaks ground in Chile

Expected to see first light in 2021, the Great Magellan Telescope (GMT) will be the largest optical telescope in existence. It will be a segmented mirror telescope employing seven of today’s largest stiff monolith mirrors as segments. Six off-axis 8.4-metre or 27-foot segments surround a central on-axis segment, forming a single optical surface 24.5 metres, or 80 feet, in diameter with a total collecting area of 368 square metres. The GMT will have a resolving power 10 times greater than the Hubble Space Telescope

The GMT will collect more light than any other telescope in history.

Official page

_Tombstone_

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

The Great telescope in Birr was the largest in the world for 72 years from 1845 to 1917, when the 100 inch Hooker telescope at Mt. Wilson was finished.

Birr is to get a new scope as part of Low Frequency Array network of radio telescopes across Europe. 1.4million grant.

http://m.rte.ie/news/2016/0112/759361-science-funding-government/

Capt'n Midnight

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Birr is to get a new scope as part of Low Frequency Array network of radio telescopes across Europe. 1.4million grant.

http://www.lofar.ie/

white paper https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3521586/i-lofar_white_paper_draft.pdf

The Irish LOFAR station, I-LOFAR, will provide a long east-west
baseline in the LOFAR network (1,425 km), facilitating high-resolution images to
be made on sub-arcsecond scales.
...
LOFAR is a next-
generation software-driven radio telescope operating between 30 and 240 MHz.
These low frequencies represent one of the last unexplored regions of the radio
spectrum and consequently offer vast scientific return
...
Each station contains 96 low-band (30-80 MHz) and 48 high-
band (120-240 MHz) antennae. These antennae are extremely simple in design
and have no moving parts.

_Tombstone_

Accelerating the next, next space telescope

Update on the James Webb

_Tombstone_

How do you build a mirror for one of the world’s biggest telescopes?

http://theconversation.com/how-do-you-build-a-mirror-for-one-of-the-worlds-biggest-telescopes-49927

Rubecula

If I remember correctly Skylab was a converted stage three of a Saturn V. Can we still send up anything that big?

Capt'n Midnight

Rubecula wrote: »

If I remember correctly Skylab was a converted stage three of a Saturn V. Can we still send up anything that big?

Nope.

NASA have spent $18Bn trying to cobble together stuff already flight proven on the Shuttle and will spend a lot more.

The Soviet Energia was also retired. It's boosters were used as Zenit. Vulkan was essentially an Energia with an increased numbers of boosters. Payload to LEO about 200 tonnes, roughly half the weight of the ISS.

BTW one of the early concepts was a wet lab for Skylab using the hydrogen tank of Stage II. And let's not forget that the Shuttle tanks pretty much got to orbit and would have only needed a small kick to circularise the orbit.

_Tombstone_

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Accelerating the next, next space telescope

Update on the James Webb

The snazzy Robo Arm putting in one of the Mirrors.



http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-webb-telescope-mirrors-installed-with-robotic-arm-precision

_Tombstone_

THE EUROPEAN EXTREMELY LARGE TELESCOPE ("E-ELT") PROJECT

The Thirty Meter Telescope

_Tombstone_

THE EUROPEAN EXTREMELY LARGE TELESCOPE ("E-ELT") PROJECT

The Thirty Meter Telescope

_Tombstone_

China uproots 9,000 people for huge telescope in search for aliens

Residents within 5km radius of Fast project in Guizhou province will be forced to leave their homes and offered £1,275 in compensation

_Tombstone_

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qysBZZjqTJM

That's some piece of Kit, hope it gets up OK.....imagine:eek:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/building-james-webb-biggest-boldest-riskiest-space-telescope

ThunderCat

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qysBZZjqTJM

That's some piece of Kit, hope it gets up OK.....imagine:eek:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/building-james-webb-biggest-boldest-riskiest-space-telescope

Is there a specific reason it is going to be a million miles away from Earth or is it as simple as there is less/no space debris that far out? Some piece of kit alright, like all of us I'm very much looking forward to seeing the results once it up there and working away.

nokia69

ThunderCat wrote: »

Is there a specific reason it is going to be a million miles away from Earth or is it as simple as there is less/no space debris that far out? Some piece of kit alright, like all of us I'm very much looking forward to seeing the results once it up there and working away.

Its at one of the Lagrangian points