In the Australian Outback, hundreds of kilometers from the noise and lights of any city, stand three dozen radio telescopes, each a dozen meters across. Working as a single unit, they patrol the skies looking at cosmic objects emitting low-energy light. Photographer Alex Cherney visited this remote observatory and created a really lovely time lapse video of the telescopes at work:
[embed width="610"]http://vimeo.com/50121809[/embed]
[The video is also available on YouTube
.] The telescopes taken together are called the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, or ASKAP
. The Square Kilometer Array is a project currently underway in Australia and South Africa to create the largest radio telescope in the world. ASKAP is a testbed for SKA, used to check out various technology and techniques that SKA will employ. But ASKAP is a full-fledged observatory in its own right, and will add to our arsenal of instruments peering into deep space. The ...
