unprecedented dark energy camera (DECam) entered service in 2012 and serves as the primary camera used for the Dark Energy Survey. The 570-megapixel camera, which has a total of 74 CCD image sensors, recently captured a dazzling image of the Antalia Cluster (Abell S 636), a group of at least 230 galaxies located about 130 million light years from Earth.
Located inside the Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, the Dark Energy Camera is a wide-field CCD imager with 62 science CCDs and a dozen CCDs that control guidance and focus. The 62 science CCDs provide a total of 520 megapixel resolution, while the additional sensors are 50 megapixels each. The entire DECam instrument, including sensors, lenses, and filter array, weighs approximately four tons, or, to borrow from Chris Nicholls, about 1,814 knots.
After a long calibration period, the Dark Energy Survey’s observation period ran from August 2013 to January 9, 2019. Since then, scientists have continued to work on all the data captured by the Dark Energy Camera. DECam has also been used for other surveys, including the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey, the DESI Legacy Imaging Survey, and the Dark Energy Camera Plane Survey.
The new image of the Antalia Cluster shows a diverse group of galaxy types, including lenticular galaxies, irregular galaxies and even ultra-compact dwarf galaxies. Per NOIRLabThe full-resolution version is available to download From NOIRLab.
Given that the Dark Energy Survey observation period covered 5,000 square degrees of the southern night sky, it’s no surprise that scientists are still working through the data and learning new things about the universe. Are. The Dark Energy Camera captured more than one million exposures, and one image covers an area of the sky that is about 20 times the average visible size of the Moon as seen from Earth. That’s a lot of data.
Image Credit: Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
