Palomar pictures sharper than Hubble's Options

[Rakhir]

'Clearest' images taken of space
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6975961.stm

A team of astronomers from the US and the UK has obtained some of the clearest pictures of space ever taken.

[climber]

'Clearest' images taken of space
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6975961.stm

A team of astronomers from the US and the UK has obtained some of the clearest pictures of space ever taken.

Whouaaa!!!
Imagine what it's going to be with the Kecks and the VLT...
I'd rather call the system LUCY*** instead of Lucky.
*** both for our "ancestor" and for Lucy in the sky ...

[brellis]

that pair of images showing the improvement via adaptive optics is almost too good to be true!

[ElkGroveDan]

While this is amazing, these image pairs are only of Palomar before and after. They have yet to show us a Hubble comparison with the new device on Palomar.

[Del Palmer]

that pair of images showing the improvement via adaptive optics is almost too good to be true!

Although the system can work with existing AO systems, Lucky itself is not an AO system, and in fact the creators of Lucky apparently have a dim view of AO:

It is disappointing that so little science has come out of such a substantial investment worldwide in adaptive optics and laser guide stars despite over 20 years of development.

[Del Palmer]

While this is amazing, these image pairs are only of Palomar before and after. They have yet to show us a Hubble comparison with the new device on Palomar.

Like this?

[brellis]

Will adaptive optics or Lucky enable direct observation of the Jupiter-sized planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani?


According to the hubble site "late 2007" is the best chance to do this. When I woke up this morning, I was shocked to learn that it is already "late 2007"!

[Del Palmer]

Will adaptive optics or Lucky enable direct observation of the Jupiter-sized planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani? According to the hubble site "late 2007" is the best chance to do this.

The total separation between planet and star will be 0.3 arcsec, so that should be easy for Lucky and AO-equipped ground-based telescopes in terms of resolving power. Contrast is a different story, however. I'm not sure whether HST can do this, given that ACS/HRC and its handy occulting mask is no longer available - it will be difficult to pick it out of the optical scattering artifacts using WPFC2.

When I woke up this morning, I was shocked to learn that it is already "late 2007"!

Heh. Happens to me every morning.

[Dyche Mullins]

Slight realignment of the left half of Del Palmer's excellent comparison image.

And I always wondered whether adaptive optics would do much for astronomy. My colleague John Sedat is now trying to 'adapt' them for use in microscopy. I wish him better luck:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/1...18.2007.01751.x

Anyway, it seems like my old boss was right when he told me it was better to be 'lucky' than good.

[akuo]

They have yet to show us a Hubble comparison with the new device on Palomar.

There is a comparison with a Hubble image at the bottom of this page on the Lucky team site, though the image could be easier to understand:
http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~optics/Lucky_Web.../LI_Results.htm

The most exciting news about this seems to be the technology that makes it possible, CCDs with practically zero readout noise!: http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~optics/Lucky_Web...I_Why%20Now.htm
This makes it possible to count actual photons with very short exposure times.

[nprev]

I find it amazing that Palomar can still function at all with all the light pollution down here...anybody know if there's a (presumably software-based) new technique for remediating that?

[Del Palmer]

I find it amazing that Palomar can still function at all with all the light pollution down here...anybody know if there's a (presumably software-based) new technique for remediating that?

The most productive work at Palomar is spectroscopy, and there's no way to correct for the mercury vapor light pollution which puts emission lines all over the band. Replacing the mercury lamps with sodium lamps is the only way forward. Already, a lot of work at Palomar is more engineering-oriented (testing new technology) rather than science gathering. If the situation gets much worse, I expect Palomar to be decommissioned, as happened at Mount Wilson.

[nprev]

Thanks for the info, Del. A depressing prospect indeed...

[tty]

This really isn't Adaptive Optics, since the trick is to use normal optics but use the moments when seeing is good. Actually it's a high-tech version of the technique used by many amateur astronomers, i. e. to snap hundreds or thousands of digital images and then superimpose the best ones. Perhaps one could call it "Attentive Optics" and keep the acronym.

[Bjorn Jonsson]

The most productive work at Palomar is spectroscopy, and there's no way to correct for the mercury vapor light pollution which puts emission lines all over the band. Replacing the mercury lamps with sodium lamps is the only way forward. Already, a lot of work at Palomar is more engineering-oriented (testing new technology) rather than science gathering. If the situation gets much worse, I expect Palomar to be decommissioned, as happened at Mount Wilson.

Hopefully not - if this seems likely to happen I would love to see Palomar turned into a dedicated planetary monitoring telescope. That's never going to happen of course but would be wonderful as light pollution is a minor issue when imaging the planets. Just consider the incredible images obtained by observers like Christopher Go and Damian Peach. These images are obtained using 10-15" telescopes and are better than the best groundbased planetary images that had ever been obtained 25-30 years ago. So just imagine what could be done with a 200" scope . Hi-res monitoring of giant planet weather patterns, monitoring Mars, Venus in UV, Io etc.