Vera Rubin's primary mirror gets its first reflective coating

Re:Vera Rubin's primary mirror gets its first reflective coa... by dylan604 on Saturday May 04, 2024 @08:27PM (#40261414)

"The VRO’s design allows the camera to capture a large area of sky the size of 7 full moons across in a single image."

Wow, that's a lot of sky for a telescope. Around 3.5° at once. I purchased a telescope specifically to view DSO, and it is ~3 full moons. When attaching my older DSLR, a full moon isn't even 50% of the captured image. Of course, mine's only ~150mm instead of 8.4m. Just putting size in perspective of my own use instead of using school buses or football pitches or basketball type nonsense.

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Re:Vera Rubin's primary mirror gets its first reflective coa... by mfranc42 on Saturday May 04, 2024 @09:39PM (#40261685)

That angle of view corresponds to a lens with 588mm focal length on a full frame camera (horizontally), and 392mm (vertically). Funny that astronomers and photographers mean very different things by saying wide angle. ;-)

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Re:Vera Rubin's primary mirror gets its first reflective coa... by dylan604 on Saturday May 04, 2024 @10:41PM (#40261892)

People get stuck into trying to apply A to B when B != A. Just because the same words are used does not mean they have the same use and meaning as applied.

Also, "space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is."

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Re:Vera Rubin's primary mirror gets its first reflective coa... by bingbingbing777 on Sunday May 05, 2024 @06:02AM (#40263579)

It's a full frame equivalent. I don't think anyone is trying to use this on a full frame camera.

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Re:Vera Rubin's primary mirror gets its first reflective coa... by mfranc42 on Sunday May 05, 2024 @11:15AM (#40265483)

Well, if you never compare A to B, you won't believe it for sure. :-/

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Re:Vera Rubin's primary mirror gets its first reflective coa... by nullc on Saturday May 04, 2024 @09:18PM (#40261610)

It's about the same angle of view that a 400mm lens on a full frame camera has vertically. (wide field astrophotography can be fun: https://nt4tn.net/astro/horse4.jpg )

VRO has a 10313mm focal length (vs 8.4m diameter, so f/1.234-- though with a huge central obstruction) illuminating a 630mm focal plane.

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Re:Vera Rubin's primary mirror gets its first reflective coa... by nabla9 on Sunday May 05, 2024 @05:19AM (#40263364)

VRO is a survey telescope. It will survey the all sky visible in the location in just few nights.

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