They capture from Chile a very clear image of Neptune | Technology

Scientists were able to take extremely sharp images of Neptune, using the European Southern Observatory (ESO) long-range telescope located in Chile.

As reported in the LUN journal, the experts used a new optical mode that corrects turbulence in the atmosphere at different altitudes.

"A new window opens" commented to the aforementioned media Juan Carlos Muñoz, PhD in astrophysics at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the astronomer of the ESO and member of the operations staff of Parbad

"All the air we have above, this layer of several kilometers of atmosphere, is constantly in turbulence and this degrades the image. When one tries to observe any object, the image seems fuzzy he added.

According to what was published by ESO Chile, the instrument MUSE (Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer), installed in the long-range telescope of the ESO, works with a adaptive optics unit called GALACSI.

This uses the Stars Laser Facility Guide, 4LGSF, a subsystem of the Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF).

"AOF provides adaptive optics for VLT Telescope Unit 4 (UT4) instruments, MUSE was the first instrument to benefit from this new installation and now has two adaptive modes of optics: wide field and narrow field mode ", indicated by the observatory.

A large field of MUSE, with GALACSI in ground mode, corrects the effects of atmospheric turbulence up to one kilometer above the telescope over a relatively wide field of view.

However, the new narrow field mode, which uses laser tomography, "corrects almost all the atmospheric turbulence on the telescope to create much sharper images, but in a smaller area of ​​the sky".

] "With this new capability, the eight-meter UT-4 telescope reaches the theoretical limit of image sharpness and is no longer limited by atmospheric disturbances." It is extremely difficult to reach. in the visible field and provides images of a sharpness comparable to those of NASA / ESA's Hubble Space Telescope " these advances will allow astronomers to study in detail without fascinating objects such only supermbadive black holes in the center of distant galaxies, jets thrown by young stars, globular clusters, supernovas, planets and their satellites in the solar system, among other things.