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The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has been able to capture telescopic images at visible wavelengths from the ground that are sharper than those from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The ground-based Very Large Telescope (VLT) has used an adaptive optics mode called laser tomography to capture images of distant objects in the solar system. The laser tomagraphy compensates for atmospheric turbulence resulting in more detail than anything prior. It works by stimulating sodium ions in the upper atmosphere using two pairs of lasers to calculate the turbulence and adjusting a deformable secondary mirror thousands of times per second in response.
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Laser Tomography Adaptive Optics Enable Sharper Telescopic Imaging
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(Score: 1) by Coward, Anonymous on Saturday July 28 2018, @12:10AM (5 children)
TFA says in the main text that the ESO images have "comparable" sharpness to Hubble. The figure caption, which was used for TFS, says "sharper". Which is it? If you look at the comparison photo [eso.org], in the ESO picture, Neptune is not really round. So maybe "sharpness" only tells part of the story. NASA can hire artists to fabricate missing details in a "sharp" way, too.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday July 28 2018, @12:33AM (4 children)
Explicit enough to me.
From the image comparison page:
Comparable as in, here's the same planet, at roughly the same angle, with the sizes matching (resized if necessary).
Other shape wonkiness can be ascribed to how the instruments work, or differing position of Neptune.
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(Score: 1) by Coward, Anonymous on Saturday July 28 2018, @03:34AM (3 children)
From TFA:
[emphasis mine]
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday July 28 2018, @03:52AM (2 children)
I'm leaning towards sharper, but not by much. It would be great to have it quantified rather than have vague statements.
This could be considered a dress rehearsal for the Extremely Large Telescope [wikipedia.org], which will be 16 times sharper than Hubble. That's a difference that is impossible to ignore. The Giant Magellan Telescope [wikipedia.org] is planned to be 10 times sharper than Hubble and will also use a laser tomography adaptive optics system [gmto.org].
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(Score: 1) by Coward, Anonymous on Saturday July 28 2018, @05:37PM (1 child)
The Large Binocular Telescope announced 3x sharper than Hubble [www.mpg.de] imaging in 2010 with 10x sharper seemingly just around the corner. Where are the resulting astronomy papers? [stsci.edu]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday July 28 2018, @05:58PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Binocular_Telescope [wikipedia.org]
Maybe sharp is still shit for ground telescopes. One of Hubble's major advantages is its infrared capability. That's what allows it to observe highly redshifted objects.
Hubble Team Breaks Cosmic Distance Record [nasa.gov]
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