Taking the Twinkle Out of the Stars
TUSCON, Ariz., Aug. 4, 2010 — Star-gazers beware. Astronomers have developed a way to take the twinkle out of the night sky, but it’s really not as sinister as it may sound. Green guide star laser beams, used to sense turbulence in the atmosphere that badly degrades large telescope image quality, shine into the sky from the 6.5m MMT telescope on Mt. Hopkins, Arizona. The lasers are part of a unique new optical system that corrects the effects of the turbulence, restoring good image quality over a field of view of...