Galileo would approve

The 1-inch lens through which Galileo saw mountains on the moon is a thousand times smaller than the lens of the Thirty Meter Telescope, which will let scientists observe galaxies at the beginning of the universe.

[The Scream]

This is the kind of stuff the university should do MORE of -- get all that knowledge off the hill where it's hard to get to and hard to find and FERAL METERMAIDS run wild -- and get it down into town where all of US can get at it easily.

UCSC had a free lecture on the Mars rover a couple of years ago over at the Holiday Inn, and the place was PACKED. Hmmm, I think it was the astronomy people that time, too. Maybe the rest of the university should GET WISE.

[slightly salty]

Agreed, but I doubt this lecture is free. But of course you wouldn't know from the article, as the cost is not mentioned.

[Local]

Come on, Sentinel.... where is the lecture ticket info?

[the mountainboy]

info? you want info? here? in the sentinel?

[astro grad]

The lecture is free and open to the public, no tickets required.

11/12/2009 Thursday 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Grand Auditorium, Del Mar Theater 1124 Pacific Avenue Santa Cruz

[Local]

Yes, the lecture is free, but arrive early! Last year was standing-room only.

[Wow]

They are installing a 30-meter telescope at the Del Mar?!

[snyper]

I'm going to be there, that's for sure.

[UCSC Westsider]

If Olga Kuchment attends the presentation, she might be amazed to learn that Galileo's telescope was not merely "a thousand times smaller" than that of the new 30 meter telescope.

In reality, the difference is MUCH more impressive, because it is the AREA of the telescope aperature/mirror that limits its light gathering and imaging ability.

The AREA of Galileo's 1 inch telescope was almost 33,000 TIMES SMALLER than the AREA of the new 30 meter scope being built in Hawaii.

[Mike Vergara]

Mirror! Not a lens, but a mirror!

[Sam]

There aren't any telescopes using lenses that are larger than about 40 inches in diameter, mirrors are used to gather light in big scopes. And the very large scopes use a number of mirrors working together to act as though they had one very large mirror.

Also, although a one inch lens would be about one-thousandth of the diameter of a 30 meter telescope mirror, the light gathering power is related to the surface area and that ratio is the square of the ratio of the diameters. It's more informative to say that the new scope will have one million times the light gathering ability of that small early scope.

[siats]

Sam wrote:

[...]
Also, although a one inch lens would be about one-thousandth of the diameter of a 30 meter telescope mirror, the light gathering power is related to the surface area and that ratio is the square of the ratio of the diameters. It's more informative to say that the new scope will have one million times the light gathering ability of that small early scope.

Actually, I calculate that it has 5.58 million times the light gathering capability. That ignores the important detail that the digital capture system
can collect light for a longer period of time (and non-visible wavelengths) since motors on the mirror keep it aligned with what you are viewing, probably over an hour, as compared to what a human eye can see. Might be good for another factor of a 100k at least, making the system somewhere between 100 billion and a trillion times more effective. awesome.

[slightly salty]

astro grad wrote:

The lecture is free and open to the public, no tickets required.
11/12/2009 Thursday 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Grand Auditorium, Del Mar Theater 1124 Pacific Avenue Santa Cruz

Free? Wow cool. Thanks, and thanks to the Del Mar for hosting it!