Australian astronomers have developed a small-scale fibre-optic instrument that could revolutionise the way astronomers use telescopes to observe the night sky. The device, about the size of a microwave oven, blankets out the brightness of the sky in the infrared light range, important for viewing stars hidden by gas and dust in space and looking into the distant universe. The announcement was made last night to mark a new collaboration in astrophotonics between the University of Sydney, the Anglo Australian Observatory and the University of Potsdam in Germany, and other institutions. Read more