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In December a specially designed 1.4 billion pixel (gigapixel) camera began scanning the night sky to protect humanity from possible Earth-bound asteroids and comets.

The Pan-STARRS cameras, built with chips designed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, is part of a prototype telescope installed in an observatory on Maui’s Haleakala Mountain. Its high resolution will improve scientists’ ability to detect asteroids and comets by a factor of five.

“This is a truly giant instrument,” University of Hawaii astronomer John Tonry told the MIT News Service. “We get an image that is 38,000 by 38,000 pixels in size, or about 200 times larger than you get in a high-end consumer digital camera.”

Congress in 2005 directed NASA to detect 90% of near-Earth objects larger than 140 meters by 2020. According to a 2003 NASA report, the 60-meter rock that struck the Earth about 50,000 years ago and formed what is now called Meteor Crater in Arizona released the equivalent of more than 10 megatons of energy. It created a hole over a kilometer across and 200 meters deep.

The telescope is one of four that will eventually be housed in the observatory’s dome. It is part of a system named Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) that is being developed at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy.

The first gigapixel camera was sent to Haleakala in August 2007 and mounted on the PS1 telescope, a prototype of the Pan-STARRS system.

The Pan-STARRS cameras each have 1.4 billion pixels on an area approximately 40cm square. A typical consumer camera has about 5 million pixels on a chip that measures a few millimeters.

The camera focal plane consists of a 60-by-60 arrays of 600-by-600 pixel CCDs. The CCD cells are grouped in 8-by-8 arrays on a single 5cm chip called an orthogonal transfer array.

They develop a chip called an orthogonal-transfer charge-coupled device, or OTCCD, which can shift its pixels to compensate for the blur of random image motion. This is similar in concept to physical stabilization features on consumer cameras, but OTCCD technology manages this feat electronically, at the pixel level.

Our photo contributor Jacky Parker has taken top honours in the RHS Photographic Competition 2008, sponsored by Medici, and was named RHS Photographer of the Year, winning first prize in the Plant Portrait Category.

Jacky’s striking image of Rudbeckia hirta ‘Marmalade’, was selected from over 4,500 entries, from across the UK and around the world. Click the winning image above to go through to the image page on Fotoviva.

This year’s judges included renowned garden photographer, Tim Sandall, Deputy Editor of The Garden, Chris Young and television gardener and lecturer, Matt James.Assessing the entrants’ technical ability and the composition of the photographs, all the judges were impressed by the standard and quality of this year’s entries. Matt James explains, “To receive 4,500 entries completely exceeded our expectations. It just proves the enthusiasm people have for their gardens and gardening. Every picture we received had something to offer and it was incredibly hard to choose the final 18 prize winning images.”

Here is the link to the RHS website RHS Photographic Competition 2008.