The Subaru Telescope
Since 2000, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) has been operating one of the largest and most sophisticated telescopes in the world at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The Subaru telescope saw first-light (i.e. started observing) early in 1999 and is currently conducting routine research, and along with other observatories around the world, is making many important discoveries about the Universe we live in.
 Subaru Telescope © NAOJ |
Some facts about the telescope:
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Rather than the normal dome shape, the Subaru enclosure is cylindrical and
rotates as one with the telescope. It is designed to reduce atmospheric thermal
turbulence that can result in the telescope producing poor images.
The most significant feature of Subaru is the relative thinness of its 23 cm thick primary mirror. With a diameter of 8.3 metres, this makes the mirror reasonably flexible, and allows astronomers to attach 261 computer-controlled pressure supports and sensors, which monitor the mirror and automatically push it back into the correct shape. This method is called adaptive optics and can also be used to correct problems caused by Earth's atmosphere. |
 Subaru Dome © NAOJ |
 Planetary Nebula © NAOJ |
This picture (left) was taken in 2004 and shows a planetary nebula, which is a low mass
star, very much like the Sun, but in the last stages of its lifetime. The circle of light
around the central star is one of the many layers of atmosphere that the star will
shed as it changes into a white dwarf star.
A white dwarf is the remaining nuclear core of the star. It is still incredibly hot, but all nuclear fuel has run out so it will slowly cool over millions of years until it becomes too dim for us to see. You can learn more about how stars die by following this link. |
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This image (right) shows the far reaches of the visible Universe. We are used to thinking
of specks of light in the night sky as stars. However, each of the points of light in
this image is actually a whole galaxy; and
all about the same size as our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
These galaxies are at the other end of the Universe that we can see, and it has taken the light from them over 10,000,000,000 years to get here. As such they are normally very dim, so in order to collect enough light to make this picture, the telescope needed to point at the same patch of sky for many hours. The bright wispy object in the foreground is actually two galaxies slowly colliding with each other. Both will eventually merge to form one single but much larger galaxy. |
 Far reaches of the Universe © NAOJ |
