{"id":386360,"date":"2025-07-02T08:39:44","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T06:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=386360"},"modified":"2025-07-02T08:39:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T06:39:46","slug":"stunning-first-images-of-the-sky-obtained-with-the-worlds-largest-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=386360","title":{"rendered":"STUNNING first images of the sky obtained with the world\u2019s largest camera"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has unveiled the very first \u201cmega\u201d images of the cosmos obtained thanks to the extraordinary features and wide-field view of its LSST camera\u2014the largest in the world. The camera took nearly two decades to build and involved hundreds of scientists across the globe, including a number of CNRS teams. The world-wide First Look unveiling event is held on 23 June at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impressive, car-sized Legacy Survey of Space and Time <\/em>camera is like nothing seen before: thanks to its 3200-megapixel resolution and the wide field of view of the telescope at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory1<\/sup>, the LSST camera can photograph 45 times the area of the full moon in the sky with each exposure. The high-definition images, which use six different colour filters, capture the entire southern night-sky in just three nights of shooting. One year after its journey from the United States to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, the first \u201cmega\u201d images will be unveiled on 23 June at a press conference held at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. This worldwide premiere is the culmination of 25 years of research and construction by international teams, including several research teams from CNRS2<\/sup>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exceptional quality of these initial images show that the telescope is ready to start its mission: to scan the entire southern hemisphere sky by taking 1,000 high-definition photographs using six colour filters, every three nights for the next ten years. Studied end-to-end, these scans will provide a high-definition, four-dimensional film of the evolving processes of the Universe. The ten-year project will also generate unprecedentedly rich and profound views of the southern sky and reveal the faintest and furthest-away objects of the cosmos. For the first time on a large scale, this vast survey will reveal the slightest changes in the Universe, from nearby celestial phenomena, such as asteroids and comets, to very distant ones, like supernovae. The project paves the way for major advances in cosmology in dark matter and dark energy, as well as our understanding of our solar system.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
CLICK TO ENLARGE:\u00a0This image combines 678 separate images taken by NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in just over seven hours of observing time. Combining many images in this way clearly reveals otherwise faint or invisible details, such as the clouds of gas and dust that comprise the Trifid nebula (top right) and the Lagoon nebula, which are several thousand light-years away from Earth.<\/em>\u00a0An ULTRA-HIGH-RESOLUTION image is available but may take quite a long time to download.\u00a0Download Trifid and Lagoon at full resolution (24.14GB)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
\n