Forgot your password?   Planet Discovered Using Telephoto Camera
Lenses 74  Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the shot-in-the-dark
dept. [rvr] writes "The Space Telescope Science Institute
(STScI) reports the discovery of an extra-solar planet called
XO-1b, which orbits a dim star in Corona Borealis every 4 days.
To find it, the brightness of several thousand stars were
regularly scanned using two mini-telescopes in Hawaii. This
equipment was built using commercial hardware: two digital
cameras, attached to telephoto camera lenses on a robotic
equatorial mount. A team of amateur astronomers helped with
their own equipment to discard or confirm dozens of suspected
transits."  Planet Discovered Using Telephoto Camera Lenses
Comments Filter:   • Real ingenuity (Score:5, Insightful)
by bcmm (768152) on Sunday May 21, 2006 @06:42AM (#15375341)
That's real ingenuity and intelligence: not throwing money at
getting incredible machines to do things for you, but working
out what you can do with off-the-shelf stuff