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In a groundbreaking revelation, the world’s largest digital camera has released the first look shots of the southern night sky on Monday. The photos and videos were released by a 8.4 meter telescope at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory atop the Cerro Pachon in Chile.
The pictures were snapped by the 3,200 megapixel camera of the Observatory. The images can be compared with a vibrant kaleidoscope of colours which are in fact the nebulas, stars and galaxies. The aerial pictures are a result of the hundreds of exposures taken over a period of seven hours.
What did the World’s largest digital camera capture:
- The shots captured the Trifid and Lagoon nebulas
- The Virgo cluster- including two bright blue spirals
- Thousands of asteroids including several near-Earth objects were observed
In the coming decade, the camera will scan the southern sky every three to four nights and is aiming to image 20 billion galaxies. It is targeting to discover countless new asteroids and celestial phenomena. It is funded by the US National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. The cost of the observatory is $810 million.
The Observatory is named after scientist Vera Rubin who propounded evidence of the dark matter.
The world’s largest digital camera, designed and built at @SLAClabis now snapping enormous photos of the southern night sky from an 8.4-meter telescope at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile.
The first images, released to the public this morning, were captured during 10… pic.twitter.com/b1QlcM72rw
— Stanford University (@Stanford) June 23, 2025
