World’s largest camera is being built to explore the universe’s biggest mysteries. The camera is expected to complete by the mid of 2021. The researchers at SLAC have successfully tested the camera and it is capable of taking gigantic 3,200 megapixel photos.
Mind blowing specs
A standard camera has a 1.4-inch-wide imaging sensor and this one is spread over a two-foot wide focal plane which contains 189 individual sensors. Each sensor is capable of taking a 16 megapixel image. Once the camera is complete it will periodically take panoramic images of the sky. Following, the data will be collected for further survey of space and time. This initiative is known as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).
The resolution of these images is so high that it would take 378 4K UHD screens to display one image in its full size. We could spot a golf ball from almost 24 Kms. It is capable of taking an image which could fit portion of the sky about the size of 40 full moons. This could spot astronomical objects from thousand kms away.
The sensors of this gigantic telescope are so sensitive that we could sport a candle from thousand kms away. This LSST project is going to unlock so many mysteries and it is indeed a technological marvel.
The team is currently working on integrating and assembling the remaining components of camera including lenses and filters. The camera will be ready by mid 2021 and it is going to be installed at Rubin Observatory in Chile to observe the sky. This project will bring us one step closer to the mysteries, in a way that no one ever imagined.
