File:A slice of moon cheese, anyone? (potw2409a).jpg
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Summary[edit]
DescriptionA slice of moon cheese, anyone? (potw2409a).jpg |
English: Appearing to cut through the Moon in this Picture of the Week is one of the laser guide stars on Unit Telescope 4 (UT4 or Yepun), one of the four 8.2-m telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). At any altitude, ground-based telescopes are affected by the atmospheric distortion of astronomical light. To counteract this, astronomers use adaptive optics in which a flexible mirror is deformed in real time to counteract this effect, yielding sharp images. The laser you see here, a powerful beam of light, excites sodium atoms 90 kilometres high in the atmosphere, consequently producing a glowing artificial star. Astronomers use this star to measure the blurring effect of the atmosphere and drive the deformable mirrors.To avoid disturbing airplanes, these lasers rely on an automated aircraft avoidance system. This system continuously monitors the sky and instantly switches the lasers off whenever an aircraft’s trajectory is predicted to enter the region of the sky where the lasers are pointed. In any case, the lasers wouldn’t be able to slice the Moon even if it was made of cheese! |
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Date | 26 February 2024 (upload date) | ||
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Author | ESO/A. Ghizzi Panizza (www.albertoghizzipanizza.com) | ||
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Licensing[edit]
This media was created by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
Their website states: "Unless specifically noted, the images, videos, and music distributed on the public ESO website, along with the texts of press releases, announcements, pictures of the week, blog posts and captions, are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, and may on a non-exclusive basis be reproduced without fee provided the credit is clear and visible." To the uploader: You must provide a link (URL) to the original file and the authorship information if available. | |
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
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current | 07:16, 26 February 2024 | 5,504 × 8,256 (6.76 MB) | OptimusPrimeBot (talk | contribs) | #Spacemedia - Upload of https://www.eso.org/public/archives/images/large/potw2409a.jpg via Commons:Spacemedia |
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Author | ALBERTO GHIZZI PANIZZA |
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Credit/Provider | ESO/A. Ghizzi Panizza (www.albertoghizzipanizza.com) |
Source | European Southern Observatory |
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Date and time of data generation | 06:00, 26 February 2024 |
Software used | NIKON Z 9 Ver.03.00 |
File change date and time | 09:53, 31 December 2022 |
Serial number of camera | 6002916 |
Lens used | NIKKOR Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S |
Date and time of digitizing | 00:21, 6 December 2022 |
Rating (out of 5) | 0 |
Date metadata was last modified | 10:53, 31 December 2022 |
Unique ID of original document | 57B32EF733C04BCF66DD24E63FC16AB5 |
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Contact information |
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2 Garching bei München, None, D-85748 Germany |
IIM version | 4 |