Computer

Does the camera of your mobile seem incredible to you? wait till you see this

Have you ever wondered what is the world’s largest camera? The safest thing is that if the idea has crossed your mind, you have discarded it because you saw them as absurd. However, such a camera exists and it is nothing more than the creation of a large digital camera, so much so that it will be useful for exploring outer space. However, it uses the same technology as the cameras we use every day. Let’s see, therefore, what its secrets are.

The largest chamber in the world has not yet been completed. It is located somewhere in the San Francisco Bay and is the work of seven years of accumulated work. Your destiny? The telescope called LSST or Legacy Survey of Space and Time which will be located at the Vera C. Rubin observatory on Cerro Pachón in Chile. The goal is to end up photographing the entire sky in record time, taking advantage of its enormous field of vision. However, its main camera has the particularity of not differing from digital cameras in appearance, moreover, it gives the feeling that one of them has been enlarged and placed in the center of the telescope.

This is the world’s largest camera

A camera of this size must have a lens also of considerable dimensionsAnd, of course, exclusive. In this case, it measures about 5 foot diameterwhat they are 1.57 meters and it is so big that it currently holds the Guinness record. This is accompanied by three mirrors that have also been designed for the world’s largest camera. And speaking of dimensions, this will take photos of sections of the sky up to seven times the size of the moon in the sky. That is, a plot corresponding to 3.5 degrees from the vault of heaven. The idea is none other than to be able to carry out one photo every 15 seconds and that in the shortest time possible to have the day to day of the firmament.

world's largest camera

Although what is most striking is the use of CCD sensors, each of them the same as those used by digital cameras. Of course, at a huge size, since it can convert photos into images whose resolution is 3.2 Gigapixels each. To put you in perspective, the most advanced iPhone camera to date is 48 Megapixels, or put another way, 0.048 Gigapixels in total. That is, the largest camera in the world can take photos with a resolution 67 times more powerful than the most expensive phone of the moment.

A supercomputer inside

However, a camera of this size has a series of problems, not only in terms of size, since You will need a plane with the wingspan of a Boeing 747 to transport it., but also due to a series of associated problems that appear with an optical device of such magnitude. If you think about it, having to process such an amount of information requires an extremely powerful computer system, so much that it consumes 1100 W. How to refrigerate it? Sink it in ice, since the entire image processing system is in a tube at the back of the camera that has to be continuously cooled at -100°C. This also helps to reduce the noise generated in the images.

LSST

As for your hardware specs, not based on any known hardwarebut has been created especially for the world’s largest camera, capable of handling up to 3,000 data channels and generate up to 11 trillion bits per hour. So its processing capacity must be, yes or yes, that of a supercomputer. Be that as it may, the photos of the firmament will no longer be as before.

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