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Posted by: Steffen Apr 11 2007, 05:17 PM

I’m loosing track of observation missions so I turned to UMSF again
The last few years many space agencies planned space-based telescopes such as CNES with COROT (2006), NASA with WISE (2009) and James Webb Telescope (2013), ESA with Herschel-FIRST (2008) and DARWIN-formation (2020). Can anyone point out a table which specifies what part of the electromagnetic spectrum each of these are using? And which are used for finding extra-solar planets?
Danke!

Posted by: PhilCo126 Apr 11 2007, 06:47 PM

Well, there’re basically 6 methods to detect planets around other stars (extrasolar planets): Direct imaging (using coronagraph to minimize the light of star), Astrometry (positional astronomy), Radial Velocity method (Doppler-effect), Transit photometry (planet transits its star), Microlensing (gravitational bending of light) and the Timing method which in fact lead to the first detection of a planet outside our solar system by timing the signal difference between the extrasolar planet and its star orbiting a common point of gravity.
Indeed, there’re a lot of space-based telescopic observation missions, each using a specific part of the electro-magnetic spectrum ( Gamma-rays , X-rays, Visible , InfraRed , Radio ). Putting together an overview list might be a good idea for some kind of ‘reference’ section here on UMSF...
I found the following on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_telescopes%2C_observatories%2C_and_observing_technology

Posted by: ngunn Apr 11 2007, 08:34 PM

It's a bit out of date, but:
http://img.search.com/thumb/f/fb/Space_telescopes.jpg/250px-Space_telescopes.jpg
For some reason this opens a much reduced version - if you type 'space telescopes' into google images you'll get straight to the proper version at the 10th choice or so.

There's also this:
http://seds.org/~spider/oaos/oaos.html

Posted by: PhilCo126 Apr 11 2007, 09:07 PM

Superb find indeed, the higher resolution space telescopes image is at:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/astro/astrolist.jpg

Posted by: PhilCo126 Sep 13 2007, 06:46 PM

Anyone attending ?

ESA and Astrium are jointly inviting the media to a press conference in Friedrichshafen, Germany, on 19 September 2007, to hear about Herschel far-infrared space observatory, a revolutionary spacecraft, its scientific objectives, and to view the very heart of its hardware. Journalists are allowed to make photos in the clean room!

Posted by: djellison Sep 13 2007, 08:24 PM

If I could afford to take the time off work - I'd go - 400D and tripod in tow....but sadly, the grim reality of 'normal' life takes priority. I've already done Rosetta and Europlanet on my 'holiday' time.

Doug

Posted by: ustrax Sep 19 2007, 01:55 PM

QUOTE (PhilCo126 @ Sep 13 2007, 07:46 PM)

Posted by: nprev Sep 19 2007, 02:16 PM

Yes, it is!

HIFI has more stacked DB-9 connectors than I've ever seen in my life. Hope that doesn't cause problems...

Posted by: GravityWaves Oct 8 2007, 08:07 AM

I'm not sure what's going to happen with TPF, last I read on it said it was "deferred indefinitely" which usually means canceled. However NASA is becoming a politically active topic again as the US Senate voted to include an additional billion for the 2008 budget.

Posted by: Del Palmer Oct 8 2007, 10:20 AM

Although TPF funding has been problematic, it has thankfully been resolved for this year, which has enabled good progress in the TPF-I and TPF-C technology testbeds.

Posted by: PhilCo126 Apr 25 2008, 03:34 PM

Meanwhile, at HST's 18th anniversary, some new images of colliding galaxies were shown to the public:
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=42690
and
http://heritage.stsci.edu/

Posted by: machi Jan 28 2012, 01:06 PM

My first information graphic (it's made in older IPE 6):

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tBhW1byXaoo/TyPVyi4K3RI/AAAAAAAAAHc/vpZe4VaPAyY/s0/SpaceObservatories2012.png

Graphic contains most of the space observatories (unmanned) observing electromagnetic radiation from deep space, which were observing for more than one month and which provide us with useful data. Horizontal scale is in years and main (left) vertical logarithmic scale represents wavelength of electromagnetic radiation in meters. First half of the right logarithmic scale depicts frequency of electromagnetic radiation and second half depicts energy of photon corresponding to wavelength of electromagnetic radiation.
Each observatory is represent by the rectangle, where width depicts lifetime, height depicts spectral coverage and color depicts state of origin (ESRO/ESA missions are labeled as "Europe"). Some observatories with significantly different areas of spectral coverage are represent with more than one rectangle. These rectangles are then connected by dotted lines.

Posted by: john_s Jan 28 2012, 05:26 PM

Excellent! I always appreciate this kind of "big picture" graphic.

John

Posted by: NGC3314 Jan 28 2012, 08:38 PM

What John said - and it helps with realizing how much of the sky has (not) been under observation in various ways over time. This will send me scurrying back to see whether some of the early Cosmos and USNO piggyback experiments operated for more than a month (or was that already factored in to the selection?)

If it's OK with machi, this graphic might be making an appearance in my next "observation and data analysis" class, being much easer to digest than a more-than-page-long table...

Posted by: machi Jan 28 2012, 09:17 PM

"Excellent! I always appreciate this kind of "big picture" graphic."

Thanks!

"This will send me scurrying back to see whether some of the early Cosmos and USNO piggyback experiments operated for more than a month (or was that already factored in to the selection?)"

You can compare graphic with this http://heasarc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/missions/time.html list of missions. Only few missions are excluded, mostly missions with lower importance for (extrasolar) astronomy, manned missions (Salyut, Shuttle, Kvant), military missions with lower importance for astronomy (DMSP) and interplanetary missions. I suppose, that this isn't last version of this graphic, so I can add some other missions in future.

"If it's OK with machi, this graphic might be making an appearance in my next "observation and data analysis" class, being much easer to digest than a more-than-page-long table."

It's OK.

Posted by: tedstryk Jan 31 2012, 04:32 PM

That is really amazing, Machi. There are some other plans, such as the Russian-led World Space Observatory that would provide a 1.7m UV telescope (extending into the visible), but whether it will materialize is debatable.

It would be interesting to compare this to the coverage available from the ground.

Posted by: machi Feb 1 2012, 03:34 PM

"That is really amazing, Machi."

Thanks!

" There are some other plans, such as the Russian-led World Space Observatory that would provide a 1.7m UV telescope (extending into the visible), but whether it will materialize is debatable."

I know about WSO (World Space Observatory), afterall we talked about it some time ago on facebook, but I depicted only (future) missions with well known start date (only exception is JWST). I suppose that both near future russian's (international) missions (second is Spectrum-X-Gamma), will eventually fly and then I'll add them to the graphic.

"It would be interesting to compare this to the coverage available from the ground."

Yes, this would be interesting, and I plan to do so, but now I'm doing different kind of information graphic, more focused on our knowledge of the Solar system.

Posted by: PaulM Jun 6 2012, 04:36 PM

If the Daily Mail can be believed, two hubble class telescopes no longer needed for spy satelites are available for free to any scientist who can find 1000 million dollars to build a spacecraft to fly one of them in.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2155161/Spy-agency-NRO-gives-NASA-huge-secret-Hubble-telescopes--going-used-place.html

These telescopes have a wider field of view than Hubble and so have uses beyond astronomy.

I would like to see one of these telescopes sent to Mars as part of a super MRO mission. I want to count the number of rocks greater than 1cm in size on the surface of Mars.

Posted by: machi Jun 6 2012, 04:59 PM

Yes, it's true, but better source is this:

http://sites.nationalacademies.org/BPA/BPA_048755#pastpresentations

You can found some info in "Past Meeting Presentations
June 4-6, 2012
Washington, DC"

One of 2.4 meter telescopes can be (probably) used as base for WFIRST.

Posted by: JohnVV Jun 9 2012, 01:48 AM

---edit----

Posted by: Astro0 Jun 9 2012, 08:29 AM

Just to be clear here. NASA is NOT having bake sales etc.
These events are public awareness efforts by members of the science community and other grassroots supporters.

Posted by: PaulM Jun 9 2012, 04:01 PM

There is a lot of excitement in the press about these two telescopes.

http://www.economist.com/node/21556553

http://news.yahoo.com/nro-gifts-nasa-two-surplus-military-space-telescopes-210900586.html

http://www.spacenews.com/commentaries/120604-fromwires-nasa-gets-spy-telescopes.html

Unfortunately someone will have to sell a lot of cookies to find the money to make use of them.

Posted by: Explorer1 Jun 9 2012, 11:06 PM

Hey, speaking of which, what happened to Triana? Still gathering dust? Last we heard they were thinking about making it a solar observatory (though hopefully not losing the blue marble camera).

Posted by: algorimancer Jun 15 2012, 12:51 PM

QUOTE (PaulM @ Jun 9 2012, 10:01 AM)

Posted by: machi Jun 15 2012, 02:11 PM

I seriously doubt about that.
But I have very strong suspicion, that ITT already tried sold their http://horus.asu.edu/pdf/HORUS_AAS_poster05.pdf to NASA.
So maybe we have candidate for second telescope (WFIRST is candidate mission for first one) - http://horus.asu.edu/.

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