One more orbital telescope with 10000 times power of Hubble

source: http://www.asc.rssi.ru/radioastron/

Just a few hours ago Russians launched their first Hubble:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz2i7uaV7JM - According to their initial claim the Sputnik-Hubble is 1000 times more powerful than Hubble-1.







The RadioAstron telescope has a 10-meter antenna, a tenth of the size of the biggest radio telescopes on Earth, but when combined with ground-based observatories it will be huge — with a resolution up to 10,000 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope.

Interferometry is widely used to create huge telescope arrays on Earth, connecting individual observatories into a larger network with a much higher effective resolution. RadioAstron is not even the first space-based telescope for interferometry — about 15 years ago the Japanese space agency launched the Highly Advanced Laboratory for Communications and Astronomy (HALCA). But HALCA was only designed to last a few years, and fell silent in 2005. And RadiAstron, also known as Spektr-R, will be 10 times more sensitive than HALCA.

The telescope is designed to unfurl in orbit, with 27 carbon fiber petals unfolding to form a 10-meter-wide dish.

It will have a highly elliptical orbit, allowing the moon’s gravitational pull to shift its path. This highly variable orbital route, along with more powerful computers on the ground, will allow Russian scientists to develop high-resolution images of distant galaxies, according to a report by the South African press agency.

RadioAstron will be able to resolve celestial objects separated by an angle of 7 microarcseconds, which is 10,000 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope, New Scientist notes. Scientists hope it will be able to peer at the event horizon of a black hole at the center of the galaxy M87; study radio waves emitted by water masers, which are clouds of water molecules found in galaxy discs; and study pulsars, among other missions.

But first Roscosmos will have to collect all the telescope’s data, New Scientist says. So far only one dish has been built to receive signals from the spacecraft, and others will be needed so the telescope’s 144 megabits per second of data is not lost.
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Mandtugai!

Let's pray and wait along with russian scientists that The Eye bring us some wonders in a few weeks. Because Hubble got some mirror problem initially and many russian satellites had problems historically.
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Mandtugai!

Was hubble a radio telescope?
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Proud member of TSWB.

End terrorism by building a school

I guess since there is traditional Space Race is still on in certain hidden level both sides may argue any Race issues through their own interest.

In the result the civilization is stepping forward little bit since V-2 rocket or the Seed.
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Mandtugai!

What form of turbulence is going to distort a radio wave?
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Proud member of TSWB.

End terrorism by building a school

What are the main imaging differences between radioastron and james webb? I mean both are non optic telescopes. and advantages and disadvantages of IR and radios...

My basic understanding is IR imaging is like those short military videos on the net. And one natgeo video showed that M1 Abrams has IR imaging too, interesting.
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Mandtugai!

Video releases from Roscosmos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpItFkXmLDs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12TFvcWe8aQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0s9g3iuVtY
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Mandtugai!

Here is Radioastrons latest updates, BTW why russians not releasing any deep space images so far now!


At present all systems and units of the SC "Spectr-R" work in a normal mode.
• August, 23d -- As well as it has been planned on August, 21st the session in the
domain of a perigee (90000 km) between the SC (switching on of a basic transmitter
(40 Watts) of the VIRK) and the ground tracking station (TS) has taken place.
Pointing of the VIRK sharp directional antenna to the TS was carried out. The
session has passed successfully at regular temperature of the transmitter and
normal level of a signal-to-noise ratio (52 dB). The signal was received by the TS at
Pushchino.
• August, 18th -- full engagement of the high informational radio channel (VIRK)
transmitter has been done. In connection with some features of SC position in the
orbit currently the Pushchino tracking station (TS) "has seen" a side lobe of the
VIRK directional pattern. A complete session SC -- Pushchino TS is planned on
August 21
st
when the SC is going to be in the domain of the perigee.
Total engagement of VIRK is the second key event for onboard scientific payload
functioning after deployment and fixation of the SRT antenna (July, 23d, 2011)!
• August 13th – a highly directive antenna pointing of a high informational channel
(VIRK) on the Pushchino TS antenna was switched on. Within two hours the
communication session with Pushchino TS in mode loop of phase stability (LPS, a
phase loop) was proceeded.
• August 12th -- the spacecraft "Spectr-R" has passed a perigee on distance of 4000
km.
• August 4th -- the spacecraft "Spectr-R" has passed a perigee on distance of 2000
km from the Earth. The receiver and transmitter of PFS (this part of high
informational radio channel (VIRK) is responsible for creation of a synchronization
phase loop of TS and SC) was successfully switched on.
• July 27th, 2011 -- after passage of shadow and a perigee the onboard H-maser was
successfully turned on.
• July 26th, 2011 -- a procedure of onboard H-maser thermostats switching on
preparation was done.
• July, 25th, 2011-- detenting of a VIRK sharp directional antenna drive is done.
• July, 23rd, 2011 -- deployment and fixation of the SRT antenna is done.


http://www.asc.rssi.ru/radioastron/news/news_hot.pdf
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Mandtugai!

Because this is not an imaging telescope. You have to process the data here on the Earth to obtain any image.
Tullio
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I mean worldwide at least million people waiting to see that arcsecond images.
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Mandtugai!

Radiotelescopes are not built to give images, like optical telescopes.They give data, which are analyzed like we are doing at SETI@home and Einstein@home. Einstein@home so far has discovered two unknown pulsars in Arecibo data and nine in Parkes data. Parkes, in Australia, can cover the galactic center, which Arecibo cannot reach. It is also steerable, like Green Bank and the Allen Telescope Array, which should restart in September.
Tullio
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Yes for pro's like you data is everything but for non pro's like me and rest of majority of fans some image is our kind of result. Hopefully that data-to-image process would not take much long time.

I guess Spitzer and Chandra are basically similar type of data-telescopes right?

The juciest part is theoretically it can peek into most hidden parts of the universe where all optics are dull.
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Mandtugai!

Spitzer works in the IR band and Chandra in the X band. The IR is near the optical band and some animals see this band. Chandra is on the X band, and its data must be processed. However, to "see" an object you must use a radiation whose wavelength is smaller than the size of the object, and radiowaves can have very long wavelengths.I am not familiar with the algorithms used in processing radiosources, but I know that they are also used in computerized axial tomography. They were developed by British astronomers using mathematical tools developed by a Russian mathematician.
Tullio
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