World largest Digital Camera in the World Ever Built for Astronomy

The Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) camera was designed to take groundbreaking photographs of space.

According to Guinness World Records, it is not just the world's largest digital camera, but also the greatest resolution.

This means that the LSST can take extremely detailed pictures, especially when compared to the images that mobile phones can capture.

Some high-end smartphones have cameras with resolutions of up to 50 megapixels, but the LSST has 3,200 of them!

The camera will next be transferred to the Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile, which is located atop the Cerro Pachón mountain.

Once there, it will be mounted on a powerful telescope and will snap hundreds of these crystal clear photographs every night for the next ten years.

According to Stanford University, which operates the SLAC, these images "will cover the entire southern sky and provide the widest, fastest, and deepest views of the night sky ever observed."

Stanford hopes that the camera will help scientists discover more about the enigmatic dark energy and dark matter that make up 95% of the cosmos, as well as detect asteroids and comprehend how galaxies develop.

When the 10-year effort is finished, the LSST camera will have captured a 3D movie of the whole southern sky. "(It) will allow us to see things on timescales that have never been possible before," said Risa Wechsler, a professor of Physics at Stanford University.

"It allows us to ask very large questions. What is the cosmos consist of? What is the nature of dark matter and energy?"

Scientists at SLAC will spend the next two months conducting final tests on the camera. In May 2023, they intend to load it onto a chartered Boeing 747 for the voyage to Santiago, Chile. It will then be transported by train to the observatory atop the peak Cerro Pachón.

Smart TVs' screensavers frequently loop between photographs of natural attractions, such as waterfalls and canyons. Imagine hundreds of those televisions, each with a single image distributed across them. The snapshot depicts a wide vista of a large area of the night sky, with stars and galaxies blazing brightly. That is the type of image that the newly completed Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Camera will capture every 20 seconds on clear nights during the next decade.

However, the LSST Camera is intended to do more than just capture gorgeous photographs. It will provide new insights into the processes that formed our cosmos. The Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science has funded the camera's design, development, and construction to further our study into dark matter and dark energy.

Despite accounting for 95 percent of the universe's mass and energy, scientists have little understanding of dark matter and dark energy.

The LSST Camera will capture these huge photos from atop a mountain in Chile. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is located on Cerro Pachón, at an elevation of almost 8,900 feet above sea level. The National Science Foundation and the DOE's Office of Science jointly fund the observatory. From this vantage point, the LSST Camera will have an amazing view of the Southern Sky.

The camera is crucial to the telescope's success. It is the largest camera ever created for astronomy, measuring and weighing as much as a compact vehicle. It weighs 6,000 pounds. In fact, it is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records! It is also the highest resolution camera ever designed for astronomy, with a staggering 3,200 megapixels. (The average camera for household photography has 10 to 20 megapixels). If the scientists wanted it to, the camera could capture a clear image of a golf ball from roughly 15 miles away.

With so many actual and metaphorical moving parts, the project demanded exceptional communication and project management. In fact, the DOE presented the team with a project management achievement award in 2021.

The LSST Camera is now being moved to its new location in Chile. At SLAC, engineers, technicians, and scientists are preparing to move it to another hemisphere. Later this year, a team from Chile will travel it up the Andes Mountains, unpack it, and mount it on the telescope.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a federal project financed by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy Office of Science, with early construction financing provided by private donations through the LSST Discovery Alliance. The National Science Foundation-funded LSST (now Rubin Observatory) Project Office for Construction was formed as an operating center managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. SLAC manages the DOE-funded Rubin Observatory LSST Camera (LSSTCam) project.