07-30-2016, 04:01 PM
pahoated scribbled:
"Radio telescopes can see more than optical telescopes. These are the last days of large ground based optical telescopes. Even ground based radio telescopes are too limiting. Sticking to something for nostalgia sake is dumb."
Since stars tend to be radio quiet, radio telescopes have a hard time detecting them, a bit of a drawback for stellar astronomy, which is, of course, a rather large field of research. You just don't get the concept that telescopes operating at different wavelengths study different areas of astrophysics.
Just a further note - if you were to build a radio telescope that could provide the same resolution as the TMT, then the radio telescope would have to have a diameter of about 7,000 miles. (Based on typical radio observations using the 21cm line of hydrogen and the TMT operating in the visible at 550 nanometers).
"Radio telescopes can see more than optical telescopes. These are the last days of large ground based optical telescopes. Even ground based radio telescopes are too limiting. Sticking to something for nostalgia sake is dumb."
Since stars tend to be radio quiet, radio telescopes have a hard time detecting them, a bit of a drawback for stellar astronomy, which is, of course, a rather large field of research. You just don't get the concept that telescopes operating at different wavelengths study different areas of astrophysics.
Just a further note - if you were to build a radio telescope that could provide the same resolution as the TMT, then the radio telescope would have to have a diameter of about 7,000 miles. (Based on typical radio observations using the 21cm line of hydrogen and the TMT operating in the visible at 550 nanometers).