January 2000 Meeting

Vista Galactica™
Toward a full color portrait of the Milky Way

The Optical Society of San Diego and this evening's host, Bob Bergstedt, are pleased to present a talk by Mr. Graham Flint about his quest to produce the world's most beautiful photographs of the Milky Way galaxy. Mr. Flint will be presenting an overview of the project, sample images of the night sky, and some details about the telescope that is being used to record the Milky Way.

The Vista Galactica™ project is the ambitious undertaking of photographing the entire Milky Way galaxy in color. The National Geographic Society-Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS I) produced technically excellent greytone photographs, but the piecemeal appearance of the POSS I mosaic and lack of color leaves much to be desired. As film has become increasingly sensitive, we have discovered the profusion of hues that permeates the Milky Way. Who can fail to be awed by images of the American and Horsehead nebulae with their swirling clouds of glowing red; nor less, by the great nebula in Orion with its delicate marbling of green, or the blue veil which softens the hot stars of the Pleiades?

The Vista Galactica™ camera has been designed to capture these jewels, along with the rest of the Milky Way. Combining the 14" x 14" photographic format of the worlds largest astronomical cameras with a field of view in excess of 30 degrees, this massive instrument captures exquisite detail while covering ten times as much sky as that of a POSS I image. Although the result still will be in mosaic form, each segment will encompass a sweeping vista within itself; projecting an expanse of sky as big as that which can be taken in at one time by the human eye. A mosaic assembled from contact-printed images will stretch tens of feet from one end to the other; presenting an awesome sight when viewed from a distance. Meanwhile, individual segments will stand up to examination under a magnifying glass; offering detail that otherwise is seen only through telescopes.

Speaker: Graham Flint is currently the chief technical officer and vice president for research at Laser Power Corporation. He previously was director of the Air Force's Developmental Optics Facility, executive vice president of International Laser Systems and chief of the Laser Devices Laboratory at Martin Marietta.

OSSD January Meeting Review

"Vista Galactica™"
reviewed by Bob Bergstadt

What would you do with a lens from a spy plane camera? Graham Flint is building an astronomical telescope with one, to photograph the Milky Way galaxy, as part of a project known as Vista Galactica™ . After the attendees of the meeting returned from viewing the lunar eclipse, Graham began his talk with stunning photographs of the some of the features of the Milky Way, showing several examples of why one would want to photograph our galaxy in color, and which colors are best. He then provided details of the trade-off study that was performed to select the focal length of the lens, its field of view, and the size of the photographic plates. Multiple images will be recorded and the final photographs tiled to produce the final mosaic image.

For the lens designers in the group, Graham presented the optical layouts of four of the spy plane lenses that were considered, along with the spot diagrams from the design form that he chose for his telescope. He described the design and assembly of the telescope and then presented the venue for presentation of the photographs when Vista Galactica™ is complete.