retired non-optical telescopes put to use as optical telescopes?

retired non-optical telescopes put to use as optical telescopes?

paranoid123 View Member Profile	Feb 29 2008, 04:31 PM Post #1
Newbie Group: Members Posts: 6 Joined: 31-October 06 Member No.: 1305	I am wondering. When space based telescopes like IR telescopes, ones used for astrometry, or planet hunting end their mission lifespan or use up mission critical expendables likes coolant, can they be converted to be used as regular optical telescopes? Telescopes like Spitzer and Kepler still have mirrors and regular CCD cameras right?

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siravan View Member Profile	Mar 1 2008, 05:05 PM Post #2
Member Group: Members Posts: 128 Joined: 10-December 06 From: Atlanta Member No.: 1472	Based on ACIS website (Chandra's Imagings Spectrometer), it is very sensitive to visible light as well as X-ray, hence the dark mask in front of the CCD: http://acis.mit.edu/acis/eb-paper/detector.html However, Chandra also has an aspect camera, which works in visible light and is used for fine pointing. In fact, it has been successful in doing science independently: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AAS...211.6003N

Posts in this topic

paranoid123 retired non-optical telescopes put to use as optical telescopes? Feb 29 2008, 04:31 PM

nprev I kind of doubt that they have "regular... Feb 29 2008, 04:47 PM

dvandorn Designs can be quite dissimilar. Chandra, for exa... Feb 29 2008, 05:05 PM

Del Palmer QUOTE (dvandorn @ Feb 29 2008, 05:05 PM) ... Feb 29 2008, 11:23 PM

dvandorn QUOTE (Del Palmer @ Feb 29 2008, 05:23 PM... Mar 1 2008, 04:00 AM

NGC3314 Something of the sort happened when WIRE's cry... Feb 29 2008, 05:44 PM

siravan AKARI (Astro-F), JAXA's IR telescope has this ... Feb 29 2008, 09:09 PM

siravan Based on ACIS website (Chandra's Imagings Spec... Mar 1 2008, 05:05 PM

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