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Posts Tagged ‘Telescope’

Vaonis teases upcoming feature for its Stellina smart telescope with 546MP panorama

16 Sep

French company Vaonis unveiled a fully automated camera telescope, Stellina. The product is designed to allow amateur astrophotographers to easily capture beautiful images of the night sky without the need for regular manual control or extensive astrophotography knowledge.

Vaonis is preparing to launch a new feature via software update in 2021 and it recently tested the feature by capturing a massive 546MP panorama of a group of nebulae. The new feature is ‘Automatic Mosaic-ing’ and it will take advantage of Stellina’s image stacking and image stitching technologies. This feature will let you create ultra-high-resolution panoramas of the night sky without you needing to do anything manually.

The image, shown via the screenshot below, was captured with the new feature by Vaonis Technical Director, Gilles Krebs. The image shows, from left to right, the Running Chicken, Statue of Liberty and Carina nebulae. These nebulae are about 7,000 light-years away. The image is comprised of 208,000 total photos, stacked into 168 images and then stitched together into a 546MP panorama. The panorama represents 336 hours of total exposure time. You can explore the full-size image by clicking this link.

Image credit: Vaonis

The Vaonis Stellina is designed to be easy to use and its intelligent, smart design allows the user to easily set up and use the device. DPReview contributor and astronomer Jose Francisco Salgado wrote an excellent review of Stellina. Salgado says, ‘The Stellina is a well-thought out smart telescope. It can easily be transported from one location to another and setting it up cannot be more simple.’ He continues, ‘…if you want a fun-to-use, click-and-shoot device that will work for you while you relax and enjoy the night sky then the Stellina is right for you!’ You can learn some of the basics of Stellina in Vaonis’s video below.

If you’d like to learn more about purchasing the Vaonis Stellina, you can head to Vaonis’s website. Vaonis has also begun teasing a brand new product that they ‘believe will change astronomy.’ The Stellina is already a compact device considering its capabilities, but the new teased product will be even smaller. It will be fully unveiled on Kickstarter on October 1. If you’d like to sign up for alerts or learn more about the new product, click here.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Researchers capture 3,200MP image using future telescope camera

10 Sep

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have captured 3,200MP images, the largest photos ever captured in a single shot. The camera, an array that contains 189 individual image sensors, will become the future camera of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) telescope at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. The camera will be used to help shed light on some of the most intriguing mysteries of the universe, including dark matter and dark energy.

The 189 image sensors are charge-coupled devices (CCD) and each capture a 16MP image. To build the image sensor array, nine CCDs and supporting electronics were assembled into square units, called science rafts, by the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and then shipped to SLAC. Then the team at SLAC inserted 21 of these square units into a grid to hold them in place.

The completion of the image sensor array and focal plane earlier this year took six months and proved to be a difficult task. In order to maximize the imaging area of the array, the gaps between individual image sensors are less than five human hairs wide. If the sensors touch each other during the process, they could easily break. Damaging a sensor or raft would be costly, as the rafts cost up to $ 3M USD a piece. SLAC mechanical engineer Hannah Pollek said of the assembly process, ‘The combination of high stakes and tight tolerances made this project very challenging. But with a versatile team we pretty much nailed it.’

The focal plane features impressive specifications beyond even the 3.2 billion total pixels. The pixels themselves are about 10 microns wide and the focal plane itself has been constructed to exacting standards. The focal plane is nearly perfectly flat, varying by ‘no more than a tenth of the width of a human hair’ across its more than two feet of width. The optics through which light will reach the image sensor array is designed to allow the sensors to identify objects 100 million times dimmer than what the human eye can see. This is equivalent to being able to see a lit candle from thousands of miles away.

The images produced by the 3,200MP camera are so large that you would need nearly 400 4K UHD televisions to display a single image at its full size. The resolving power of the camera would allow you to spot a golf ball from about 15 miles away.

As mentioned, the camera will be installed at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. Once it has been installed, it will capture panoramic images of the southern sky every few nights for 10 years.

‘The complete focal plane of the future LSST Camera is more than 2 feet wide and contains 189 individual sensors that will produce 3,200-megapixel images. Crews at SLAC have now taken the first images with it. Explore them in full resolution using the links at the bottom of the press release. (Jacqueline Orrell/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)’ Image and caption credit: SLAC

Steven Ritz, project scientists for the LSST Camera at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said, ‘These specifications are just astounding. These unique features will enable the Rubin Observatory’s ambitious science program.’ Over the course of a decade, the camera will capture images of about 20 billion galaxies. Ritz continues, ‘These data will improve our knowledge of how galaxies have evolved over time and will let us test our models of dark matter and dark energy more deeply and precisely than ever.’

Before the focal plane can be used within the Rubin Observatory’s program, it needs to be rigorously tested. This includes capture images of a variety of objects, including a head of Romanesco broccoli. In order to operate normally, the sensors must be cooled to negative 150° Fahrenheit. Without a fully assembled camera, the team at SLAC used a 150-micron pinhole to project images onto the focal plane.

‘Taking the first 3,200-megapixel images was an important first test for the focal plane. To do so without a fully assembled camera, the SLAC team used a 150-micron pinhole to project images onto the focal plane. Left: Schematic of a pinhole projector that projects images of a Romanesco’s detailed texture onto the focal plane. Right: SLAC’s Yousuke Utsumi and Aaron Roodman remove the pinhole projector from the cryostat assembly after projecting the first images onto the focal plane. (Greg Stewart/Jacqueline Orrell/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)’ Image and caption credit: SLAC

SLAC’s Aaron Roodman is the scientist responsible for building and testing the LSST Camera. Of the successful test images, he says, ‘Taking these images is a major accomplishment. With the tight specifications, we really pushed the limits of what’s possible to take advantage of every square millimeter of the focal plane and maximize the science we can do with it.’

Despite the successful tests, there is much more work to do. Over the next few months, the team will insert the cryostat used to reduce the temperature of the image sensors along with the focal plane into the camera body and add lenses, including the world’s largest optical lens. The team will then affix a shutter and a filter exchange system so that the camera can be used to capture the night sky in different colors. The team anticipates the SUV-sized camera to be ready for final testing in mid-2021 before it begins its final journey to Chile.

‘Over the next few months, the LSST Camera team will integrate the remaining camera components, including the lenses, a shutter and a filter exchange system. By mid-2021, the SUV-sized camera will be ready for final testing. (Chris Smith/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)’ Image and caption credit: SLAC

JoAnne Hewett, chief research officer at SLAC and associate lab director for fundamental physics, says, ‘Nearing completion of the camera is very exciting…It’s a milestone that brings us a big step closer to exploring fundamental questions about the universe in ways we haven’t been able to before.’

As one would expect, we are unable to display 3,200MP images here on the site. However, SLAC has five full-size images taken with the focal plane of the LSST camera which you can view at the links below:

• Head of Romanesco broccoli

• Photo of the Flammarion engraving

• Photo of Vera Rubin, courtesy of the Carnegie Institution for Science, where Vera Rubin spent her career as a scientist

• Collage of LSST Camera team photos

• Collage of logos of institutions involved in the LSST Camera project

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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High-resolution telescope images show Sun’s surface in ‘unprecedented detail’

01 Feb
‘This image covers an area 8,200 x 8,200 km (5,000 x 5,000 miles, 11 x 11 arcseconds).’ — Credit: NSO/AURA/NSF

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope has produced high-resolution images that show the Sun in ‘unprecedented detail,’ according to an announcement from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The telescope is located close to the summit of Maui’s Haleakala volcano. Each of the ‘cell-like structures’ visible in the images and video are approximately as large as Texas, according to NSF.

Understanding the Sun is an important step toward improving space weather forecasts, which will help humanity anticipate potentially disruptive events. The Inouye Solar Telescope is a key tool that will shed light on a number of the Sun’s mysteries. According to the NSF, having hours of advanced notice about potential space weather events will give officials time to put satellites and important infrastructure like power grids into safe mode.

The Inouye Solar Telescope features a massive 4m (13ft) mirror and more than 11km (7 miles) of piping as part of the cooling system that protects the telescope and its optics. The NSF explains that Inouye feature’s adaptive optics designed with an off-axis mirror placement that compensates for the blur that would otherwise result from the Earth’s atmosphere.

Astrophysicist and cosmologist Katie Mack chimed in on the above video, sharing a fun little anecdote about how the forces at work on the sun can be seen here on Earth in everyday life:

Ultimately, the Inouye Solar Telescope has the largest aperture of any solar telescope in the world, according to director Thomas Rimmele. The first half-decade of the telescope’s operation is expected to produce more solar data than humanity has generated in the past few hundred years.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Stellina: imaging the sky with a smart telescope

26 Jan

Stellina Telescope Camera
$ 3,999 | vaonis.com

Stellina is a self-contained, portable telescope designed to easily take photographs of celestial objects. All you need is the Stellina itself and a smartphone. It is not a traditional telescope that lets you explore the universe through an eyepiece. Instead, it captures images with its built-in camera which then you can view on your phone (or tablet). During my latest trip to Yellowknife, Canada I was able to put the Stellina to the test and capture some classic telescope targets.

When folded, the Stellina looks like a retrofuturistic home appliance and one could hardly guess that it holds a telescope and a camera inside. Its weight of 11 kg (25 lb) makes it portable but its bulky size of 49 x 39 x 13 cm (19 x 15 x 4.7 in) and the lack of handles makes it a little awkward to move around. The Stellina comes with a Gitzo carbon fiber tripod (1.3 kg, 2.2 lb) which provides leveling and stability to the telescope.

Stellina is a portable astronomical telescope and camera. Everything you need to take photographs of celestial objects is contained in this unit and on a smartphone/tablet app.

Setting up the Stellina

The Stellina requires 5.1V / 2.4A to operate. It can be powered by an external battery connected through a USB Type-C port and stored in a compartment, or by an AC external power adapter. The 10,000-mAh battery included with the Stellina should provide approximately 5 hours of use. Once powered up, the Stellina creates its own Wi-Fi network which you use to control it from the Stellina app (available for both iOS and Android devices) .

The Stellina reads the local time and GPS coordinates off your smartphone and then it automatically focus and aligns itself by looking around the sky and identifying stars. All this is done in a completely automated fashion and in just a mater of minutes. Pretty smart!

The Stellina comes with a 10,000-mAh battery that is easily stored in its own compartment and provides approximately 5 hours of use.

Imaging with the Stellina

The Stellina uses a 400mm F5 apochromatic lens and a 1/1.8″ CMOS Sony sensor (3,096 x 2,080 pixels, 6.4 MP) to produce a series of exposures which are then combined into a final image with a Field-of-View (FOV) of 1° x 0.7°. But first you must pick a target.

Once the automated calibration is completed, the Stellina offers you a catalogue of astronomical objects that are visible from your location at that particular time. For each of these objects the Stellina app provides you basic information about the object, its current location in the sky (altitude and azimuth), as well as the recommended exposure time.

Stellina provides useful information of the potential targets up in the sky at the current time, including recommended exposure times.

According to Vaonis, the Stellina manufacturer, “The catalogue includes all Messier objects and the most interesting NGC targets in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.” Some objects whose angular diameters exceed the Stellina’s FOV are excluded from the catalogue, but Vaonis plans to extend that list when they add the ability for the Stellina to combine multiples images in a mosaic.

Vaonis is also planning to let users enter sky coordinates manually and point at any direction in the sky. That will be another welcome feature since the Stellina does not let you manually slew. Luckily, these features should easily become available through software updates.

I selected the Andromeda Galaxy, the Stellina slew to the correct location in the sky, and started imaging. To do this, the telescope relies on a technique called image stacking where a series of relatively short exposure are combined to produce an image with a higher signal-noise ratio. As more images are exposed and added, you can interactively review how the stacking and image processing improves the final image and decide when to stop exposing.

In the two screenshots below, you can see how the image improved from a combined exposure time of 2 min 40 sec (16 exposures of 10 seconds each) to a combined exposure time of 8 min (48 exposures of 10 second each). As expected, the spiral arms of the Andromeda Galaxy appear more prominent as the Stellina gathers more light.

Comparison of a 2 min 40 sec exposure with a longer 8 min exposure. Stellina has the impressive ability of showing you in real-time how the final exposure improves as more images are added and total integration time increases.

I could have exposed for a longer time but, unfortunately, clouds rolled in. Impressively, the Stellina software rejects cloud-covered images and does not add them to the stack, so when clouds cover the FOV you will notice how the total exposure time pauses until the clouds move out of the way. Evidently, automation is at the heart of Stellina and Vaonis has done a great job in the programming of this telescope.

On the other hand, what did not impress was the feedback given by the Stellina app when saving JPEG photos. You can either save images on the app itself or on your smartphone’s photos app (and in the cloud if your phone is set up that way), but if you choose the latter, the photos are deleted from the app (with no warning) along with any observation information. That is, photos copied to your photos app are saved without any metadata. Furthermore, JPEG photos produced by the Stellina are downsampled from 6.4 MP to 1.4 MP.

There’s definitely room for improvement in documenting Stellina’s features

If you want to enjoy full-resolution images you need to retrieve FITS (Raw) files using the USB port. That’s great! As long as you know that options exists. And therein lies a problem. The Stellina instruction manual does a good job of explaining how to set up the telescope up to the point of connecting it to the app, but nothing further. Once you start controlling the telescope via the Stellina app, documentation and feedback from the app is underdeveloped.

I learned about the ability to save Raw images on a Q&A page on the Vaonis support site. Unfortunately, by then I had returned the unit. There’s definitely room for improvement in documenting Stellina’s features. I look forward to someday using the Stellina again and processing its FITS files.

Resulting (JPEG) Images

Below is the resulting 8-minute exposure of the Andromeda Galaxy. The Stellina did a good job of automatically focusing, tracking, stacking, and processing the images. Nevertheless, a bright vignette is fairly noticeable. According to Vaonis, the vignette ‘is produced by the luminescence of the sensor’ and they are working on improving the image processing algorithm.

1.4 MP JPEG of the Andromeda Galaxy saved from the Stellina app. This is the result of 48 10-sec exposures stacked automatically by the Stellina for a total exposure time of 8 minutes.

Afterwards, I selected the open cluster The Pleiades from the catalogue and let Stellina combine 60 10-sec images. Judging by what the Stellina captured in a total exposure time of 10 minutes, it’s a shame that the clouds rolled in again. The blue reflection nebula around the cluster stars was starting to nicely show up in the final image.

1.4 MP JPEG of The Pleiades cluster saved from the Stellina app. This is the result of 60 10-sec exposures stacked automatically by the Stellina for a total exposure time of 10 minutes.

Final Thoughts

The Stellina is a well-thought out smart telescope. It can easily be transported from one location to another and setting it up cannot be more simple. A carrying case to move the telescope around would be a welcome addition.

The fact that the Stellina finds its orientation with respect to the sky, focuses, exposes, stacks, and process images in a completely automated fashion is quite the feat for a prosumer device. Although the Stellina app needs further development, the whole experience of operating the Stellina is fun and the ability of seeing the final exposure improve as more images are stacked is quite gratifying.

The whole experience of operating
the Stellina is fun

Once you’re happy with your final exposure you can easily share your astrophotographs with friends and the rest of the world in a matter of minutes. Stellina is definitely a telescope for the social media age. Then at home, you have the option of experimenting with the Raw files.

Unfortunately, all this comes with the high price tag of $ 3,999. For that price, some will consider instead the more versatile combination of camera, lens, tripod, and star tracker. But if you want a fun-to-use, click-and-shoot device that will work for you while you relax and enjoy the night sky then the Stellina is right for you!

What we like:

  • Extremely easy to set up
  • Smart and highly automated
  • Instant gratification of previewing images as they are stacked
  • Fun to use

What we’d like to see improved:

  • A carrying case included with the telescope
  • Ability to slew to any location in the sky
  • Further development of the Stellina app

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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The world’s largest optical lens has been delivered for a $168M, 3.2-gigapixel telescope camera

01 Oct
Farrin Abbott/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California, the lab overseeing the design and fabrication of a 3.2-gigapixel digital camera for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), has successfully received the shipment of what may be the world’s largest high-performance optical lens. The announcement was made earlier this month by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where researchers designed the optical assemblies for the LSST.

At this point in time, the 3.2-gigapixel digital camera intended for the LSST is 90% complete, according to LLNL. SLAC has been tapped to manage the subcomponent integration and final assembly of the $ 168 million camera, which is currently estimated for completion in early 2021.

Image credit: Farrin Abbott/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Ball Aerospace in Colorado and Arizona Optical Systems built the lens assembly for the telescope, including the massive 1.57m (5.1ft) diameter L-1 optical lens and the smaller 1.2 (3.9ft) L-2 lens. According to LLNL, the L-1 is likely the largest high-performance optical lens ever created. It took around 17 hours to deliver the two lenses by truck to the SLAC in Menlo Park. Below are a few images of the delivery from the full Flickr album posted by SLAC:

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Livermore physicist Scot Olivier largely credited LLNL optical scientists Lynn Seppala and Brian Bauman, as well as LLNL engineers Vincent Riot, Scott Winters, and Justin Wolfe, for making the massive optical lens a reality. Once fully completed, the LSST will be used to capture digital images of the entire visible portion of the southern sky, according to Livermore, offering what experts anticipate will be ‘unprecedented details of the universe.’

Image credits: Farrin Abbott/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, used with permission

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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NASA shares new portrait of Jupiter captured by Hubble Space Telescope

31 Aug

The aging Hubble Space Telescope has produced a new full portrait image of Jupiter, our Solar System’s stormy gas giant. NASA shared the image earlier this month, though it was captured by the space telescope on June 27. The portrait features Jupiter’s colorful bands, as well as its iconic Giant Red Spot, a massive storm that has been raging on the planet for hundreds of years.

According to NASA, the new image features ‘a more intense color palette’ related to the clouds visible in Jupiter’s atmosphere, exceeding that of past portraits. The space agency explains that this new image was captured in visible light using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3.

NASA describes the importance of the image in a post, pointing out various bands and colors that hint at changes in the gas giant’s atmosphere. The two cloud bands visible below and above the Great Red Spot, for example, are moving in opposite directions, NASA explains, each separated by winds moving up to 644km/h (400mph).

The portrait comes amid ongoing work with the James Webb Space Telescope, which will eventually replace Hubble, offering newer technology and improved camera capabilities, among other things. The new space telescope is scheduled to launch in 2021.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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How To Do Astrophotography Using DSLR And Telescope

22 Feb

Growing up, I was one of those kids running around and telling everyone that I’m going to be an astronaut. I had a room that would make you feel like Buzz Lightyear could actually live in it and forget he’s on Earth. So it was pretty obvious that somehow I’d find myself getting into astronomy. Now I never really became Continue Reading

The post How To Do Astrophotography Using DSLR And Telescope appeared first on Photodoto.


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Photographing the Moon with a DSLR and a Telescope

04 Dec

See my lunar eclipse photos at: www.flickr.com Scopetronix is no longer in business, so maybe try www.telescopeadapters.com. I don’t know them, but they seem to sell the same kinds of adapters for about the same price.

This video produced for us by the excellent Gavin Hoey shows how to use a 3 light setup in a coventional 3 point lighting setup he also shows how to light a white background. Although this is for video lighting this would still apply to still photography and these lights are strong enough for portrait photography. Enjoy Got to product www.smick.co.uk
Video Rating: 4 / 5

 
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