![]() “We provide an all-sky surveillance to find anything that moves or changes in brightness.” “They need a discovery engine to tell them where to look,” Smith said. A suite of computers analyze those results in real time if they reveal something of interest, within minutes the system will alert large telescopes around the world, said Roger Smith, the lead engineer for the camera. It also scrutinizes specific portions of the sky in greater detail to search for those transient events, Kulkarni said. The new camera will scan the sky over the course of three nights, and then repeat the survey to detect differences between the images that suggest movement or changes, Feeney said. We’re very happy with resolution, the quality. You basically press go and wait for the data to come in. “When all is said and done, this will be a robotically driven instrument. ![]() “When this was first built, they used photographic plates, and the image was burned into the chemicals in the plate,” he said. It illustrates the evolution in astronomical technology since Palomar Observatory was dedicated 70 years ago in 1948, Feeney said. The 576-megapixel camera contains a mosaic of 16 sensors that work together to automatically record cosmic images. ![]() Clad in white suits and hair nets to minimize dust and debris in the sensitive apparatus, they installed black baffles to absorb stray light within the telescope and prevent reflections and ghosting. Last week, Caltech engineer Michael Feeney worked on the device with mechanics from the observatory. ![]() The new camera sits inside a 48-inch telescope, one of three at the observatory, along with 60-inch and 200-inch instruments. ![]()
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