The first 3200-megapixel camera is the size of an SUV and will be installed in the Vera C. Astronomical Observatory. Rubin in Chile
To see photos from the first 3200-megapixel camera would require 378 ultra-high-definition 4K televisions. About the size of an SUV, the world’s most powerful camera was built by scientists at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif.
The massive camera will take panoramic images of the entire southern sky and is part of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, LSST, project, which will track the movements of billions of stars and galaxies to create the most detailed and extensive astronomical “movie” ever made. For this reason, the camera will be installed inside the Vera C. Rubin located in Chile, which is still under construction. Scientists at SLAC Labs are counting on finalizing the camera in the next few months (there are still some key components missing, which are being made) and completing the installation of this instrument by mid-2021.
3.2 Gigapixel camera, what it looks like
Imagining a camera with 3,200 megapixel resolution, or rather 3.2 Gigapixels, is not easy. The size is that of a large SUV, the 0.6-meter focal plane is composed of 189 individual sensors or charge-coupled devices, each capturing 16-megapixel images. The light-capturing cells are just 10 microns in size, a tiny size but still 10 times larger than the typical pixel we find on our smartphones.
With this configuration, the camera’s focal plane is large enough to capture a 40-full-moon portion of the sky and with a resolution that allows for a sharp image of a golf ball at a distance of more than 24 kilometers. To display these images in full resolution, you’d need as many as 378 televisions at 4K resolution.
What’s the point of a 3200-megapixel camera
A camera of this size and resolution is certainly not used in everyday life. Scientists at SLAC Labs have designed it to take high-definition photographs of our sky and see objects such as stars and galaxies that are 100 million times fainter than those observable with the naked eye, as if we were looking sharply at the dim light of a candle thousands of miles away.
It took scientists more than six months to create the focal plane and the camera is not yet complete: it lacks a shutter, lens and filter exchange system, which will be ready by the end of 2020. Scientists expect to install it on the telescope at the Vera C. Rubin in Chile by the end of 2021.
Thus, the world’s most powerful camera will become part of the LSST project, which will begin data taking in 2022 and take panoramic photos of the southern sky until at least 2032. No one today can know what mind-blowing technologies will replace this camera in that year.