diagram of world’s largest digital camera courtesy of CNET
Toronto. My friend Russ Forfar, up in the wilds around Tobermorray sent me this interesting link on CNET. The article titled, “Inside the World’s Largest Digital Camera” was written by Andy Altman on Oct. 23, 2022.Altman begins the article, “Scientists in Northern California are putting finishing touches on the world’s largest digital camera. They recently took off the lens cap and invited CNET to take a rare look inside.
“Engineers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have spent the last seven years building the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, or LSST, camera. The camera is the size of a small car and weighs about three tons, and at five feet across, the lens holds a Guinness World Record. Watch the embedded video to see our visit inside the clean room with the camera.” Watch the brief video in the above article – well worth the time.
The massive sensor is 3,200 megapixels! Far bigger than the sensors used on current smartphone cameras. It is wonderful to see the scientific community moving to large scale digital technology. When the Atlantic cable was rolled out mid last century, Bell used vacuum tube amplifiers rather than the relatively new transistors since vacuum tube the chronology was well understood, well tried, and well tested.
A tip of the winter cap goes to Russ for shearing this interesting article with us. NB. the digital camera is about the size of a car – unlikely to be used by the professional photographers. But, if it anything like computers, it should shrink to pocket size at a modest price by late this century :-).
