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Energy

(September 21–25, 2005)

Andy Savage

Masson Mills Textile Museum

Gerardo A. Sanchez

Inside a Telescope - Dentro de un Telescopio

Merida, Venezuela

September 23, 2005

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© 2005 Gerardo A. Sanchez, All Rights Reserved.

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Inside a Telescope.

All our energy comes from only one source: our mother star, the sun. It is impossible to imagine anything without it, no fire, no gas, no wind and of course... no life. But our Sun is only one of thousands of millions of stars our galaxy has... our galaxy is only one of millions the whole universe has.

We cannot travel to the stars but we can reach them. Every night, the most incredible laboratory is open (free!!!) for us: the sky!

Here you are inside the "J.Stock" Telescope at the National Observatory in Merida, Venezuela. This is a Schmidt type telescope, basically a wide field telescope that makes it possible to take a "sky panorama". In driftscan mode you can get a "pano" two degrees wide by long as you have clear sky over your head. The main view is the CCD camera, an array of 16 CCDs that give a resolution of 64 megapixels, one of the biggest arrays of CCDs for use in astronomy in the world. Just in front of it is the mirror of the telescope with its 6 petals open. The three black pipes (runing from the mirror towards the camera) are Invar bars: they help to keep the focal plane between the camera and the telescope always parallel. If the temperature changes and the shape of the mirror changes, the camera moves in the same way. The silver pipes drive the cooling liquid to cool down the CCDs: they must work below -80° Celsius (-176° Fahrenheit) to keep the signal noise down.

Outside Telescope panorama here.

More telescope pictures and diagrams here.

Dentro de un Telescopio.

Toda nuestra energía viene de una sola fuente: el Sol. No es posible imaginar nada sin el; no existiría el viento, o el fuego, o el petróleo y por supuesto no existiría la vida. Pero nuestro Sol no es más que una simple estrella de los cientos de millones que existen en nuestra galaxia y nuestra galaxia no es más que una de las cientos de miles que pueblan el universo.

Nosotros no podemos viajar a las estrellas pero podemos alcanzarlas fácilmente. Cada noche el más increíble laboratorio está abierto para nosotros: el cielo. En esta panorámica Ud. está dentro del telescopio “J.Stock” en el Observatorio Nacional de Llano del Hato, en Merida, Venezuela. Este telescopio es del tipo Schmidt, básicamente una cámara de campo ancho que permite efectuar fotos panorámicas del cielo. Utilizando el modo de rastreo es posible tener una panorámica de 2 grados de ancho por un largo igual al que nos permita el cielo despejado sobre nuestras cabezas. La vista principal es un arreglo de 16 CCDs que nos da una cámara de 64 megapixeles de resolución, uno de los arreglos más grandes de CCDs, para uso en astronomía, en el mundo.

Panorámica externa del telescopio aquí.

Más fotos y diagramas del telescopio aquí.
Centro de Investigaciones de Astronomía

My panoramas web page
Location

Latin America / Venezuela

Lat: 8° 47' 18" N
Long: 71° 53' 12" W

Elevation: 3600 m.a.s.l.

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Unknown / Undeclared.

Equipment
Nikon Coolpix 5000, Fisheye FC-E8, home made panohead. Software: PanoTools, Adobe Photoshop CS, PanoCube

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