Scientists Make Highest Resolution Photos Ever of the Night Sky

Astronomers at the University of Arizona, Arcetri Observatory in Italy, and at the Carnegie Observatory have developed a new type of camera that allows higher resolution (sharper) images to be taken than ever before. The team has been developing this technology for over 20 years at observatories in Arizona (most recently at the Large Binocular Telescope; LBT), and has now deployed the latest version of these cameras in the high desert of Chile at the Magellan 6.5m (21ft) telescope. “It was very exciting to see this new camera make the night sky look sharper than has ever before been possible” said University of Arizona professor Laird Close, the project’s principal scientist, “We can, for the first time, make deep images that resolve objects just 0.02 arcseconds across. That is a very small angle on the sky. It is like the width of a dime (1.7 cm) seen over 100 miles (160 km) away. It could also be compared to resolving a baseball diamond on the Moon”.

*Removing the “twinkle” From the Stars in Visible Light

*New Science Results From MagAO: Insights into How Stars and Planets Formhttp://arxiv.org/abs/1308.4144

*Diffraction-limited Visible Light Images of the Orion Trapezium Cluster With the Magellan Adaptive Secondary AO System (MagAO) preprint [pdf] arxiv preprint

*High Resolution H alpha Images of the Binary Low-mass Proplyd LV 1 with the Magellan AO System preprint [pdf] arxiv preprint

*The First Circumstellar Disk Imaged in Silhouette with Adaptive Optics: MagAO Imaging of Orion 218-354preprint [pdf] arxiv preprint 

For a little more insight into the project see this：：https://visao.as.arizona.edu/（SY）