Radical Antarctic telescope 'would outdo Hubble'

A novel Antarctic telescope with 16-m diameter mirrors would far outperform the Hubble Space Telescope, and could be built at a tiny fraction of its cost, says a scientist from the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Sydney, Australia.




Tests by a team from the University of New South Wales, reported in the journal Nature this week, show that the Dome C site in the Australian Antarctic Territory is by far the best place ever tested on Earth for doing infrared and optical astronomy.

"A telescope there would perform as well as a much larger one anywhere else on Earth. It's nearly as good as being in space", said Dr. Will Saunders of the Anglo-Australian Observatory

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If my understanding of the way the Earth goes round and round...it would only work for like.....25% of the time...right?

Originally posted by MarkLuitzen
A novel Antarctic telescope with 16-m diameter mirrors would far outperform the Hubble Space Telescope, and could be built at a tiny fraction of its cost, says a scientist from the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Sydney, Australia.




Tests by a team from the University of New South Wales, reported in the journal Nature this week, show that the Dome C site in the Australian Antarctic Territory is by far the best place ever tested on Earth for doing infrared and optical astronomy.

"A telescope there would perform as well as a much larger one anywhere else on Earth. It's nearly as good as being in space", said Dr. Will Saunders of the Anglo-Australian Observatory

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Enfin good news

Originally posted by dreamlandmafia
If my understanding of the way the Earth goes round and round...it would only work for like.....25% of the time...right?

Hubbles the same way, its in LEO orbit when it should be in GEO.

Originally posted by dreamlandmafia
If my understanding of the way the Earth goes round and round...it would only work for like.....25% of the time...right?

Well, actually it could see only much under 50% of sky and it would be out of operation half of the time because in antartica's summer sun doesn't set.

Well having spent a couple of years at Australian Antarctic bases, I wonder a bit about this.

First thing, during summer the sun is in the sky 24 hours per day so an optical telescope would be useless for many months.

During winter, fair enough. But there are other problems. Complete cloud cover often occurs, just like anywhere else. The Aurora Australis can be pretty bright too and fills the whole sky, which would blind the telescope for faint objects. Then there is wind driven snow and even blizzard.

Staying up all night in an observatory can be pretty chilly even in a temperate climate. How would you like to do it at -20C or -30C , -40C ?

Great idea, I just would not like to be the astronomer that had to use it.

At least with Hubble it is above all the weather and can be used any time.

Originally posted by Warpspeed
During winter, fair enough. But there are other problems. Complete cloud cover often occurs, just like anywhere else. The Aurora Australis can be pretty bright too and fills the whole sky, which would blind the telescope for faint objects.

Yeah, look on face of this inventors might be nice to see when telescope could see nothing but clouds for month. (just like here in Finland)

And auroras would be real pain in the a*s. Even faint auroras can spoil visiblity of DS-objects completely... and on these latitudes nights without them would be exceptions.

Se before some politicians give green light for this there's need for big reality check.

[edit on 21-9-2004 by E_T]

i'm not worried so much about the cloud cover... that can't damage mirrors or equipment, whereas winds blowing up snow, ice, and whatever else around could (especially since it's all in the open like that.)

You are right about wind blown ice particles, it erodes anything left outside pretty badly. It is just like sand blasting. The telescope would need to be completely covered and only used when conditions were suitable, which probably would not be very often.