ASTRONOMY SOLUTIONS

The idea is to sharpen the view of space seen by optical telescopes - such as the Anglo-Australian Telescope in NSW or Hawaii's Keck Telescope - which is now blurred by Earth's atmosphere.

Astronomers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to side-step the problem by building ever-bigger telescopes or compensating for the "bright" distorting light of the infrared part of the spectrum by rapidly moving the lenses or measuring and adjusting for the incoming infrared radiation.

"Bright sky in the infrared is a curse to astronomers," said team leader University of Sydney astronomer Joss Bland-Hawthorn, previously with the Anglo-Australian Observatory. He developed the technology with colleagues at the AAO and Redfern Optical Components in Sydney.

The CEO of ROC, physicist Mark Englund, said: "The technology has the potential to change astronomy and become a multi-million-dollar niche market". According to Dr Englund, Australia has already been highly successful in developing technology for specialist markets such as astronomy.

He agreed with Professor Bland-Hawthorn's estimate that, once commercialised, the technology would be roughly 100 times cheaper to install on an instrument than today's less efficient adaptive systems.

Federal Science Minister Kim Carr welcomed the news that the system was successfully trialled last month by the AAT at Siding Spring. "I sincerely hope the technology can realise the potential that has been demonstrated to date," he said. "This is exactly the type of innovation Australia needs to be globally competitive and shows why public investment in our National Innovation System is so vital."

http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/cgi-bin/ioa_people.cgi?name=JossBlandHawthorn

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