This IIT-Delhi alum's nanosatellite telescope can capture high-resolution images at lower costs
This telescope’s satellite imaging system is geared for high-resolution captures, matching the resolution of images taken by the full-frame, lens-based, or concave mirror systems used in today’s telescopes.
Angika Bulbul, a PhD candidate at Ben-Gurion University (BGU), Israel, has recently come up with a unique innovation: a telescope consisting of small carton-sized cameras that can capture images from space.
This telescope’s satellite imaging system is geared for high-resolution captures, matching the resolution of images taken by the full-frame, lens-based, or concave mirror systems used in today’s telescopes.
Besides, reports have stated, this innovation could revolutionise the economics of space exploration, astronomy, aerial photography, and other space-based operations as well.
Speaking on the research that went into this project, Angika, who hails from Bhagalpur in Bihar and is an alumna of NIT Calicut and IIT-Delhi, told Edex Live,
“Several previous assumptions about long-range photography were incorrect. We found that you only need a small part of a telescope lens to obtain quality images. Even by using the perimeter aperture of a lens, as low as 0.43 percent, we managed to obtain similar image resolution compared to the full aperture area of mirror or lens-based imaging systems.”
The research is also expected to bring down the cost, material, and time needed for building large optical space telescopes with large curved mirrors.
According to Tech Explorist, the research team has built a miniature laboratory model that consists of a circular array of sub-apertures. This would enable the setup to demonstrate the synthetic marginal aperture with revolving telescopes (SMART) system capabilities.
In the Edex report, Angika explains,
"In the upcoming development, we are working towards to improve the power efficiency of our telescopic system. This is because we know all the telescope receives very few lights from astronomical bodies resulting in low signal to noise ratio (SNR), for better reconstruction of the image, and here we are working on the improvement of power efficiency.”
(Edited by Athirupa Geetha Manichandar)
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