Global Mini Array
Stimulated by the below talk, I was thinking about astronomy. I have question for my more knowledgeable readers.
It is a fact that amateur astronomers are sometimes more lucky in finding faint and rare events like comets or asteroids. Simply because they a big gang of people. My question is; what would be the cost of all time all (night) sky monitoring, done by small telescopes with CCDs, distributed to the universities around the globe. What would be the minimum size of telescopes for enough power to catch events like faint solar system objects or very very early supernovas to warn big brothers? And how many of them would we need?
Does anybody have an estimate?
Hmm, it seems that there are some useful information here.
Update: OK! How about this estimate? 10000 telescopes each for 10000$ making totally 100 million dollars. 5000$ for a nice small (around 14 inch) telescope and 5000$ for the tracking system, CCD and the computer. Every university can buy its own equipment and take software and technical help from the center as well as access to the data. Doesn't it worth that?
It is a fact that amateur astronomers are sometimes more lucky in finding faint and rare events like comets or asteroids. Simply because they a big gang of people. My question is; what would be the cost of all time all (night) sky monitoring, done by small telescopes with CCDs, distributed to the universities around the globe. What would be the minimum size of telescopes for enough power to catch events like faint solar system objects or very very early supernovas to warn big brothers? And how many of them would we need?
Does anybody have an estimate?
Hmm, it seems that there are some useful information here.
Update: OK! How about this estimate? 10000 telescopes each for 10000$ making totally 100 million dollars. 5000$ for a nice small (around 14 inch) telescope and 5000$ for the tracking system, CCD and the computer. Every university can buy its own equipment and take software and technical help from the center as well as access to the data. Doesn't it worth that?
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home