Wednesday, June 17, 2009

PTF in the News

The Palomar Transient Factory story has gotten coverage from Astronomy.com, HPWREN, PhysOrg.com, SpaceRef, Space Ticker, Universe Today, and more.

In case you missed it, here's the press release from Berkeley: NERC Helps Expose Cosmic Transients and from Caltech: Unique Sky Survey Brings New Objects into Focus.

And for your viewing pleasure, here is a shot I took of Palomar's Samuel Oschin Telescope two weeks ago:

The Palomar Transient Factory sky survey begins with this 60 year old telescope. In this shot the telescope remained motionless as the dome was turned behind it. If you look closely you can see stars shining "through" the dome (and a few cirrus clouds too). As the dome slit rotated around it brought different sections of the sky into view. It makes for a pretty unique look including the appearance of the "hole" at the top of the dome.

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