10-05-2018, 04:13 PM
HOTPE - I believe adaptive optics was actually first thought of by astronomers back in the 1950s but the technology wasn't available to develop it. The military then developed the idea as they had an awful lot more money, but essentially it was always an astronomical idea. Once the military had developed it then it became available to others (not just astronomy, it's used in other fields as well).
kander - I don't think there are any other moving objects in the time-lapse image other than one possibly faint object in the bottom right of the image. All the other objects in the field are background stars. They may appear to move slightly because the images were almost certainly not taken at the exact same telescope position and in the same conditions - plus there may be one or two variable stars in the field.
The faint objects in the field are not smaller, just less bright. All the objects are point sources but the atmosphere mucks that up a bit, and you can have very bright stars that are very distant or very faint stars that are much nearer, so you can't use their brightness as a guide to what or where they are.
kander - I don't think there are any other moving objects in the time-lapse image other than one possibly faint object in the bottom right of the image. All the other objects in the field are background stars. They may appear to move slightly because the images were almost certainly not taken at the exact same telescope position and in the same conditions - plus there may be one or two variable stars in the field.
The faint objects in the field are not smaller, just less bright. All the objects are point sources but the atmosphere mucks that up a bit, and you can have very bright stars that are very distant or very faint stars that are much nearer, so you can't use their brightness as a guide to what or where they are.