VLT snaps image of double asteroid zipping past Earth
The Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile was successfully able to photograph the double asteroid that flew past the Earth on May 25 at a distance of 3.2 million miles and a speed of 43 thousand miles per hour.
The left image on the right is the raw image, while the right image is their reconstruction after applying adaptive-optics (AO) to the raw image. From the press release:
Bin Yang, VLT astronomer, declared “When we saw the satellite in the AO-corrected images, we were extremely thrilled. At that moment, we felt that all the pain, all the efforts were worth it.” Mathias Jones, another VLT astronomer involved in these observations, elaborated on the difficulties. “During the observations the atmospheric conditions were a bit unstable. In addition, the asteroid was relatively faint and moving very fast in the sky, making these observations particularly challenging, and causing the AO system to crash several times. It was great to see our hard work pay off despite the difficulties!”
To put it mildly, that right image is a fantasy. Astronomers love to tout the wonders of adaptive optics, but no matter how good it might be, it still is garbage-in-garbage-out, a computer simulation based on their guess at what the object would look like if there was no atmosphere in the way. In this particular case, they are being especially fantastic, and guaranteed to be wrong. It is impossible for them to extrapolate such minute surface details from the fuzzy image on the left.
Still, getting an image of this asteroid as it zipped by at that speed using such a large telescope is an achievement, and bodes well for the use of ground-based astronomy of near Earth asteroids.
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The Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile was successfully able to photograph the double asteroid that flew past the Earth on May 25 at a distance of 3.2 million miles and a speed of 43 thousand miles per hour.
The left image on the right is the raw image, while the right image is their reconstruction after applying adaptive-optics (AO) to the raw image. From the press release:
Bin Yang, VLT astronomer, declared “When we saw the satellite in the AO-corrected images, we were extremely thrilled. At that moment, we felt that all the pain, all the efforts were worth it.” Mathias Jones, another VLT astronomer involved in these observations, elaborated on the difficulties. “During the observations the atmospheric conditions were a bit unstable. In addition, the asteroid was relatively faint and moving very fast in the sky, making these observations particularly challenging, and causing the AO system to crash several times. It was great to see our hard work pay off despite the difficulties!”
To put it mildly, that right image is a fantasy. Astronomers love to tout the wonders of adaptive optics, but no matter how good it might be, it still is garbage-in-garbage-out, a computer simulation based on their guess at what the object would look like if there was no atmosphere in the way. In this particular case, they are being especially fantastic, and guaranteed to be wrong. It is impossible for them to extrapolate such minute surface details from the fuzzy image on the left.
Still, getting an image of this asteroid as it zipped by at that speed using such a large telescope is an achievement, and bodes well for the use of ground-based astronomy of near Earth asteroids.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
I’m having a hard time not thinking “fraudulent” is the best description of that AO-processed image. I’ve seen some amazing things enabled by adaptive optics, but this reeeeeeally doesn’t smell right.
… then I see there is another link on the ESA site describing the image on the right as an artist’s impression, which I can totally believe. So is the image on the left the actual AO-enhanced image?
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1910a/
Maybe they’ve been “inspired” by TV shows?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9yj2pVWk
Matt in AZ asked: “So is the image on the left the actual AO-enhanced image?”
My understanding of adaptive optics is that the image recorded in the camera is the post-adaptive image. The adjustments are made within the telescope and are not made to the collected data.
Once an image is formed, that is all the data that there is. In order to enhance an image, either guesswork has to be made that makes assumptions about, for instance, the data within adjacent pixels, or multiple images have to be processed together so that the additional data can be used to make better guesses about the pixels.
Edward is correct. Adaptive Optics involves warping the optical components, usually the mirror, to attempt to eliminate distortion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_optics
Matt in AZ, and Bob Z., are both correct. Here’s the description from the ESA website. The right-hand image is pure fantasy, and a disappointment for me that they’d publish such an image.
“The left-hand image shows SPHERE observations of Asteroid 1999 KW4. The angular resolution in this image is equivalent to picking out a single building in New York — from Paris. An artist’s impression of the asteroid pair is shown on the right.”