1.4 Gigapixel camera anyone?

[DavidU]

Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) observatory is up and running.
http://www.astromart.com/news/news.asp?news_id=1083

[renormalised]

I'll buy two of those, thank you:):P

Just imagine having that attached to your RCOS 32" scope...or your Tak:):P

The chip would weight heavier than the scope!!!! (at least the Tak:P)

[spearo]

one picture would cover half a basketball field...

Wouldn't want to have to buy the ink refills for that!
:lol:
frank

[mithrandir]

You'd have atrocious vingetting. Neither of those could illuminate the chip. They are using a 1.8 metre scope.

And somehow I don't think your USB3 / Firewire800 could manage a download in 30 secs.

[renormalised]

That's my point:)

The chip would be as big as an A4 sheet of paper!!!:)

That scope most likely is a Nasmyth focus with a 12" tertiary mirror and at least that for the focuser size. The camera probably has onboard storage and then downloads via a fibre optic link....it's probably the size of two boxes of reflex copy paper and weighs just as much!!!!.

[Zaps]

http://pan-starrs.ifa.hawaii.edu/public/design-features/telescopes.html

[Bassnut]

mmm, well, let me see, plugged that chip into CCD calculator (can handle that, handy if you bought one). Given a 1000mm FL, 9um pixel guess (which is a 342*342mm chip), to get a usefull 1.85arc sec image scale, with say a square 38000* 38000 pixel format, you get a 19 degree FOV.

mmm, that images the top ten nebs by themselves with a LOT of surrounding blank sky full of stars.

Nah, thats just uber wide feild wooze status. A 1.4 tera pixel (well, why not Peta pixel) chip on the other hand, would allow say 40 hrs on each filter just once, and youd catch everything in one go so you can spend the rest of you life seperately processing pretty much everything up there without ever taking another pic.

[Bassnut]

Thanks for that link Zaps. The chip read noise is 5e, nothin flash, interesting they dont mention QE.