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New BGU System Produces High-Res Images at Low Cost
An article in the December issue of the journal Optica demonstrated that nanosatellites the size of milk cartons arranged in a spherical (annular) configuration were able to capture images that match the resolution of the full-frame, lens-based or concave mirror systems used on today's telescopes.
BGU Ph.D. candidate Angika Bulbul, working under the supervision of Prof. Joseph Rosen of BGU's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, explains the groundbreaking nature of this study, saying it proves that by using a partial aperture, even a high-resolution image can be generated. This reduces the cost of traditionally large telescopic lenses.
"We found that you don't need the entire telescope lens to obtain the right images. Even by using a partial aperture area of a lens, as low as 0.43%, we managed to obtain a similar image resolution to the full aperture area of mirror or lens-based imaging system. The huge cost, time and material needed for gigantic traditional optical space telescopes with large curved mirrors can be slashed," she said.
(Score: 2) by Tara Li on Wednesday January 09 2019, @03:49PM
Interesting. I was going to comment that this technique might be useful for sources with sufficient brightness, such as planets and asteroids here in the main body of the solar system, but apparently not necessarily from the information given in that slide show. Of course, more and more smaller separated units starts to approximate a solid mirror, but possibly with a commiserate increase in computation to convert the incoming data to usable imagery.