CCDs: made up of an array of pixels (picture elements), read out like a bucket brigade. (CCD picture here) Other detectors: --------------- Eye: like any camera, with a lens in front, and a detector (the retina) --- in back. 2 types of cells in retina: 1) Rods: center of field-of-view: for reading, high resolution 2) Cones: around edge of vision field: larger, less resolution, but more sensitive (for seeing lions, cars at night) => Use averted vision on faint objects: look a little to the side. Color vision: become color-blind at night; brightest stars _can_ activate it, in a dark sky. (Sky & Telescope article in 1994 on astronomy-optimized eyes) Photography: ----------- - Now largely obsolete, thanks to CCDs - Can cover wide area: Schmidt telescopes (but now so can CCDs) - Cheap (sometimes) -> Archives valuable: Harvard and Sonneberg (former E. Germany) Photomultiplier tubes/photoelectric photometers/TV cameras: ---------------------------------------------------------- not as sensitive or linear as CCDs, now mostly only special uses (e.g. finders) ======================================================================== Instruments: what goes between detector and telescope ----------- - spectrographs - cameras (for direct imaging and with CCDs, photometry) - photometers (now done by CCDs) - others, e.g. polarimeters