The little gold coloured chip pictured here is actually the worlds most sensitive camera that is capable of capturing planets orbiting distant stars.
The camera is made here in the UK and is named the OCam CCD200. The sensor is to be used in VLT’s (very large telescopes) and will capture images at a resolution of 240 x 240 pixels… yes, you heard me correctly… 240 x 240 pixels which makes it 1/20th of a megapixel. But, the reason for this is that it will shoot 1500 images per second which makes it extremely sensitive that allows it to capture planets orbiting planets of nearby stars.
“This breakthrough camera is without an equivalent anywhere in the world,” says Norbert Hubin, head of the Adaptive Optics for ESO space agency. “The camera will enable great leaps forward in many areas of the study of the universe.”
The camera is the fastest and also very sensitive which means that pictures captured have around ten times less digital noise then the current VLT sensors. I can’t wait to see pictures captured using the OCam.
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Hi,
Actually the cam will not get the images from the planets. The camera will be used in the adptive optics loop to correct the light coming from the stars and blurred by our atmosphere, where you need to make 1000 corrections in one second.
Once the correction is made, another camera will take the pictures with such resolution that will allow us to see planets orbiting around other stars.