3.2 Gpixel NUV-VIS-NIR camera

[enricosavazzi]

The camera records from 320 to 1,050 nm wavelengths, with transmission filters subdividing the range into 6 spectral bands. The front element of the lens (refracting, not a mirror) has a diameter of approximately 165 cm. The focal plane "sensor" (actually a mosaic of 201 CCD chips cooled to -100 C) and the bandpass filters have a diameter of 64 cm. Some parts of the sensor are specialized for specific functions. The camera can take a 3.2 Gpixel exposure every 20 seconds, with a primary mission length of 10 years. I will leave to you the homework of computing how much storage memory this will require. 

 

https://lsst.slac.stanford.edu/

[Andy Perrin]

I don't think I can afford the HARD DRIVE SPACE never mind the camera!

[Stefano]

I have some 30000x16877 fractal images that weight about 100 MB each, some took days to render.

 

3.2 Gpixel at 24 bits (3 bites per pixel), uncompressed would use 9.6 GB. That's a lot for an image, but you could store a few hundreds of them on a hard drive. I think (hope) Andy was joking.

 

Knowing how expensive 50 mm filters are (look at Edmund Optics' bandpass filters, for example), a 64 cm filter sounds insane. That's like a literal window.

[Andy Perrin]

Stefano, I have a probably TWENTY THOUSAND or more images on my hard drives at the moment. A few hundred is nothing. I was not joking, you just don’t have a good feel for the number of photos people take, I think? I mean, with my current camera, I often come home with several hundred photos in a single day. 

[Stefano]

I don't know how many images I have in my PC, but I remember estimating about 50k some time ago. I have about 10k photos and 17k screenshots from my phone alone (yes, maybe that's too much, I take a lot of screenshots).

 

I was talking about a few hundreds 3.2 Gpixel images from that camera, possibly uncompressed. At around 10 GB each, you would need one TB to store ~100 of them. A few hundreds with a few TB of space. You can buy an 8 TB HDD for about $200.

[Andy Perrin]

Yes, and I’m telling you that a few hundred pics (ie one or two hard drives of photos) is single day’s shooting. Do you expect me to buy several hundred hard drives (for say, 200 days of shooting)?
 

At $200 each day, that adds up to $40000. 

[Stefano]

Yes, if you think long term, that's too much space.