The Southern Hemisphere's first deep sky telescope seeks to uncover the secrets of the universe
The Southern Hemisphere’s first deep-sky telescope is poised to shed new light in some of the darkest parts of the universe, as it begins its survey of western New South Wales. Developed by Macquarie University, the Hunter Telescope has been unveiled at the Siding Spring Observatory, nestled among the mountains of the Warrumbungle Range near Coonabarabran. Project team member Sarah Caddy says the Huntsman design allows for highly specialized research into the formation and evolution of galaxies. “When we look for very dim objects, objects with low surface brightness, we want to collect as much light as possible,” he said. Built almost entirely from ready-to-use technology, the Hunter’s “eyes” are Canon’s 10 telephoto lenses. ( ABC Western Plains: Nic Healey ) “With traditional mirror-based telescopes, they can scatter light into parts of the field of view that we don’t want … that makes it very difficult to find very dim things around galaxies. “What we do is we have 10 lenses, all l