Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2024

23 MAY-JUNE 2024 ASTRO PUBLISHING bulb. This high-quality image demonstrates the incredible deep and wide capabilities of DECam. From its vantage point in the Chilean Andes, the Blanco telescope re- ceives light that has traveled across the Universe. After entering the telescope’s tube, the light is reflected by a mirror 4-meters (13- feet) wide — a mas- sive, aluminum-coated and precisely shaped piece of glass roughly the weight of a semi- truck. The light is then guided into the opti- cal innards of DECam, passing through a cor- rective lens nearly a meter (3.3 feet) across before falling on a grid of 62 charge-coupled devices (CCDs), which act like the ‘eyes’ of the camera. The in- coming light is then converted into electri- cal signals which are read out as pixels. A single image taken with DECam has 570 megapixels, so with multiple exposures stacked on top of one another, the amount of detail that can be captured is truly re- markable. Owing to DECam’s large mosaic of CCDs, astronomers are able to create mesmerizing images of faint astro- nomical objects, such as the Vela Supernova Remnant, that offer a limitless starscape to explore. rapidly on its own axis and possesses a powerful magnetic field. These properties result in twin beams of radiation that sweep the sky 11 times per second, just like the con- sistent blips of a rotating lighthouse !