High-energy telescope to survey the skies

A telescope meant to scan the heavens for high-energy evidence of black holes, supernovae and pulsars has opened its eye in Namibia, astronomers say. Dubbed HESS II and weighing in at 600 tons, the world's largest Cherenkov telescope will survey the Southern Hemisphere with its 90-foot mirror, NewScientist.com reported. It will seek signs of very-high-energy gamma rays from beyond Earth by looking for so-called Cerenkov radiation. The radiation is produced as gamma-rays cascade into and interact with our atmosphere, creating faint flashes of blue light. HESS II will use an extremely sensitive camera to capture the flashes. "The new telescope not only provides the largest mirror area among instruments of this type worldwide, but also resolves the cascade images at unprecedented detail, with four times more pixels per sky area compared to the smaller telescopes," said Pascal Vincent of the French team responsible for the telescope's photo sensor package. The new telescope with work together with four 40-foot telescopes already in operation since 2004 to create the HESS ("High Energy Stereoscopic System") complex.