One Degree Imager debuts at WIYN telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory
The days when professional astronomers peered through telescopes are long gone. Today, the camera or other instrument that is attached to the telescope is as important as the telescope itself. Over the life of a telescope, new instruments are added that greatly enhance its capabilities. So the new camera known as the One Degree Imager, or ODI, that is being commissioned at the WIYN 3.5-meter telescope on Kitt Peak is of great excitement to astronomers. When fully operational, the ODI camera will be able to image an area of the sky five times that of the full moon - far larger than any previous camera at the WIYN telescope. Sensitive to visible light, the camera will be able to resolve objects as small as 0.3 arc seconds - about the equivalent of seeing a baseball at a distance of 30 miles away. Read more
WIYN telescope to get billion-pixel camera The number of larger-aperture telescopes is growing, but size isn't all that matters in a research telescope. Also important is how much of the sky the telescope can clearly image. A telescope used by Indiana University astronomers and their colleagues at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, is about midway through a major improvement -- the addition of a new kind of camera that will allow scientists to record the telescope's entire exceptionally wide field of view for the first time.
The WIYN Telescope, a 3.5-meter instrument employing many technological breakthroughs, is the newest and second largest telescope on Kitt Peak. The WIYN Observatory (pronounced "win") is owned and operated by the WIYN Consortium, which consists of the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, Yale University, and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO).