WIYN telescope to get innovative billion-pixel, $6.6 million camera(Forwarded)

Media Relations
Indiana University

Media Contacts:

Catherine Pilachowski, Department of Astronomy
812-855-6913

Hal Kibbey, IU Media Relations
812-855-0074

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 21, 2007

WIYN telescope to get innovative billion-pixel, $6.6 million camera

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The number of larger-aperture telescopes is growing,
but size isn't all that matters in a research telescope. Also important is
how much of the sky the telescope can clearly image. A telescope used by
Indiana University astronomers and their colleagues at Kitt Peak National
Observatory near Tucson, Ariz., is about midway through a major
improvement -- the addition of a new kind of camera that will allow
scientists to record the telescope's entire exceptionally wide field of
view for the first time.

Called the WIYN 3.5-meter telescope (representing the partners involved --
the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, Yale University and the
National Optical Astronomy Observatory), it has an important and unique
advantage because of its superb image quality over a very wide field of
view, about 1 degree wide on the sky or twice the diameter of the full
moon. The WIYN telescope produces images with a sharpness approaching that
of the Hubble Space Telescope at red and near infrared wavelengths, and it
can capture a much larger segment of the sky than Hubble does. More
information about WIYN is available at
http://www.noao.edu/wiyn/

The purpose of the four-year One-Degree-Imager Project is to take
advantage of this wide but sharp field of view by creating a wide-field
imager that can electronically make corrections for atmospheric blurring
across the telescope's entire field of view, an area about 100 times
larger than the field of view of the Hubble telescope. By taking optimal
advantage of the telescope's superb image quality over an unusually wide
field of view, ODI will provide WIYN astronomers with a unique
observational facility.

The ODI camera combined with the 3.5-meter telescope will provide stunning
images with high scientific content. The ODI will also present interesting
information technology challenges in handling, mining and archiving the
images, because every night of observing with the ODI will produce a
terabyte of data. The new ODI imager will be so perfectly matched to the
capabilities of the WIYN telescope that the combination will occupy a
special forefront niche in ground-based astronomy. It will not be
surpassed by another facility until the planned, but not yet funded,
6.5-meter Large-Aperture Synoptic Survey Telescope comes on line sometime
in the next decade.

"The One Degree Imager will have two big advantages over other
astronomical cameras," said Catherine Pilachowski, chair of the IU
Astronomy Department. "First, it's big. ODI will have a billion pixels, in
a 32,000 x 32,000 array. Because it's so big, ODI will be able to take
pictures of a big region of sky at one time, an area of sky more than four
times the area of the full moon. Most astronomical cameras only look at a
much smaller piece of sky, so ODI will be a big gain for IU astronomers.

"The second advantage is that the detectors in ODI will be able to
partially correct for the distortions of Earth's atmosphere," Pilachowski
said. "Using a special technology, the camera will slosh the image around
to follow the small but fast motions of the atmosphere that cause the
telescope's image to blur. With ODI, IU astronomers will sometimes be able
to take pictures that are nearly as sharp as those produced with the
Hubble telescope, but over a much larger area of sky."

The next step in the development of ODI is a prototype camera called
QUOTA. It incorporates the same "image sloshing" technology, but in a
smaller version with 16 million pixels. The QUOTA camera is now being
installed at WIYN as a test of the technology being developed for ODI.

When the QUOTA camera has been completed, it will be available for use by
WIYN observers, including IU faculty and students. IU Emeritus Professor
Kent Honeycutt will be one of the first users of the QUOTA camera this
spring for observations of cataclysmic variables.

"Cataclysmic variables are close binary stars in which one star is
transferring matter onto the other, a white dwarf," Pilachowski said. The
matter forms a hot disk surrounding the white dwarf as the matter spirals
in. Because CV systems are relatively small, astronomically speaking,
changes in the brightness of the disk happen quickly.

"With ODI, Honeycutt will be able to capture the fast changes in
brightness to learn about how matter forms into the disk and onto the
white dwarf," Pilachowski said. "These physical processes are the same
ones that control how matter accretes onto black holes, and CVs provide a
good way to learn about accretion processes."

The development of the One Degree Imager is supported in part by the
National Science Foundation through the Telescope System Instrumentation
Program administered by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.

IMAGE CAPTION:
[http://newsinfo.iu.edu/asset/page/normal/2777.html]
The One Degree Imager camera under construction at WIYN will cover a
region of sky more than four times larger than the full moon. Copyright
Holder: NOAO and the WIYN Observatory