Pan-STARRS solves the biggest problem facing every astronomer
Before you even look through your telescope, you need to know where to begin.
“If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.” -H. James Harrington
When you look out at any object in the Universe, the easiest thing to measure is how bright it is. But what you’re seeing might not accurately measure what the object is actually doing. Gas, dust and the atmosphere all contribute to blocking some of the light, preventing it from reaching your eyes. As atmospheric conditions change over time, what you see might change as well. Observations you make in the bluer part of the spectrum might be affected differently than observations in the redder part, as dust grains of different sizes have different sensitivities to a variety of wavelengths. If you’re looking at something hundreds, thousands or millions of light years away, you’ll need an entirely different calibration, all dependent on what’s between you and the object you’re trying to observe. It’s astronomy’s hardest problem: understanding how light is affected from when its emitted until it reaches your eye.
