All you have to do is point it straight up and wait for Earth's rotation to carry them past your field of view. There is only so much you can learn by using a giant telescope to study a single galaxy in great detail, he said. People have realized that you can't just look at a few peculiar objects. Sitting in the telescope control room while Hickson's survey data are being collected can be an awe-inspiring experience. On a computer screen, images slowly creep by.
Stars show up as bright dots, while galaxies are more spread out.
The astronomers say they regularly identify galaxies no astronomer has ever seen before. Funding to end The NASA orbital debris survey for which the telescope was built operates on a similar census-taking principle. Space around the Earth is littered with junk from space flight, ranging from old rocket engines to tiny fragments left by exploding spacecraft. Telescopes and radar are used to track the larger objects, but NASA realized it didn't know how many tiny fragments might be out there. And even a tiny fragment traveling at orbital velocity is enough to damage a spacecraft.