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Finding Nibiru With A Backyard Telescope Or Discover Exoplanets Around Other Stars
A University of Arizona scientists is improving optics to make it possible for amateur astronomers to find exoplantets with a backyard telescope by incorporating advanced optics. With such optics one could also clearly image the fabled planet Nibiru, if anyone could tell you where it is located, but the same optics could be applied to imaging the known planets of our solar system or to find planets circling other stars or even a planet X out in the Oort cloud. The inventor Olivier Guyon says the technnology will be affordable for backyard astronomers and should be available within months.
Olivier Guyon has been fascinated with the stars and planets since childhood. He said scientists are looking at exoplanets in the hope of finding life outside the solar system. However, unlike stars, which are bright and relatively easy to observe, exoplanets hide in the overwhelming glare of their parent stars, making them invisible to conventional telescopes.
Photo: MacArthur Foundation
“If you try to point a normal telescope at star and try to take an image of the planet next to the star, it won’t work because the glare of the star is going to prevent us from actually seeing the planet, which is much, much fainter than the star,” Guyon explained. “Once we have identified such planets, PIAA (Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization) allows us to study them. We can look at their colors. Do they have oceans? Atmosphere? Land? Clouds?”
Image: NASA
Olivier Guyon identified the theoretical limit on the performance of planet-hunting telescopes. Based on this analysis and computational models, he compared the expected performance of several methods to identify their relative strengths and shortcomings.
Photo: MacArthur Foundation
University of Arizona astronomer and optical scientist Olivier Guyon has been named a 2012 MacArthur Fellow for his contributions and creative potential toward the study of planets outside the solar system and for his vision of involving the public in their discovery.
When I was 10 years old, someone in my family gave me a book about astronomy, and I started looking at the sky and reading about it,” Guyon said in a recorded video statement. “Then I got a bigger telescope, and it never stopped.”
The young researcher develops optics for astronomy, specifically techniques to take images of exoplanets, planets outside our solar system.
“Every star you see at night has planets, and they’re called exoplanets,” Guyon said. “They’re extremely important because if there is life elsewhere in the universe, it is probably on a planet that is similar to the Earth around another star.”
Guyon, who obtained his doctorate in physics at the Université Paris VI in France in 2002, has been an assistant professor of astronomy and optical sciences at the UA since 2008. He has a joint appointment in the College of Science’s department of astronomy and the College of Optical Sciences.
Guyon develops optical techniques that massage the light of the telescope in a way that eliminates the glare and makes the planet emerge from the darkness.
One such technique is Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization, or PIAA. In the process, he has figured out ways to get away with mirrors half the size of what scientists deemed necessary to accomplish this feat, making the search for alien worlds cheaper, less equipment-intensive and therefore more accessible. In doing so, Guyon hopes to involve the public and amateur astronomers in the search and discovery of exoplanets.
“In the last two years, I have been working on how to make this technique affordable and easy to use for amateur astronomers, schools and the general public to actually implement in their backyard,” he said.
While Guyon currently is working to optimize the performance of ground-based PIAA instruments, the foundation pointed out that the PIAA design significantly reduces the engineering and cost obstacles to deploying a planet-locating telescope in low-Earth orbit.
The fellowship also rewards Guyon’s contributions to other aspects of instrumentation, such as adaptive optics and low-cost, lightweight telescopes for amateurs.
“In all aspects of his work, from theoretical calculations to laboratory fabrication, Guyon relentlessly tests and pushes boundaries to construct instruments that are key to one of the great scientific adventures of our time – searching the galaxy for other planets like our own,” according to the nomination announcement.
Jim Wyant, former dean of the College of Optical Sciences, said: “When I met Olivier four or five years ago, I was extremely impressed. He’s so clever, so full of ideas – there’s no question that he deserves this.”
Advancing optics in ground based telescopes was recently featured an a worldwide planetary conference in Europe where professionals and amateaurs showed new stunning images from ground based telescopes.
Using a readily-available ‘hobby’ telescope, off-the-shelf camera and computer equipment, plus experienced observing skills, Emmanuel I. Kardasis of the Hellenic Amateur Astronomy Association has produced the first amateur albedo map of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. This demonstration has implications for the future role of amateur astronomers. The work will be presented at the European Planetary Science Congress in Madrid.The original observations (top) and interpretations (bottom) of the first ever amateur albedo map of Ganymede.
Kardasis explains, “Ganymede has a tiny disk as seen from Earth so was a good test for my techniques. If the same methods were applied to other worlds, perhaps the volcanic moon Io, we could capture surface fluctuations. Professional observatories may create better images but they cannot monitor our rapidly and ever-changing Universe.”
To produce the images Kardasis attached a camera to his telescope and recorded a video of Ganymede. Selecting only the sharpest frames of the video allowed him to obtain a series of images when the atmospheric conditions – known as ‘seeing’ – were most favourable. These best images were then stacked and aligned, before being enhanced through photo-editing software.
The equipment required for amateurs to make valuable contributions is relatively easy to obtain. Kardasis says, “Creating useful images of planets requires a telescope with a diameter of at least eight inches. For tiny discs, such as the moons of Jupiter, bigger is definitely better. My Ganymede images were made using an 11-inch telescope. You also need a good motor drive on your tripod, a sensitive camera, some freely-available software, and lots of patience!”
Contacts and sources:
University of Arizona
related links:
Exoplanets imaging with a Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization Coronagraph – I. Principle Olivier Guyon, Eugene A. Pluzhnik, Raphael Galicher, Frantz Martinache (Subaru Telescope), Stephen T. Ridgway (NOAO), Robert A. Woodruff (Lockheed Martin Space Corporation) http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0412179
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