The forces of rotation caused red hot masses of stones to be torn away from the Earth and to be thrown into the ether, and this is the origin of the stars.

— Anaxagoras 428 BC

fiber optics

New telescope LAMOST comes online in China

The LAMOST Schmidt Telescope

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) is a quasi-meridian reflecting Schmidt telescope laid down on the ground with its optical axis fixed in the meridian plane. IT has a 4m aperture. With a 1.75 m focal plane it has a 5 degree field of view, and a 1/0.25 nm spectral resolution! 4000 optical fibers collect the spectra of 4000 objects. It has  the highest spectrum acquiring rate in the world. It is located at the Xinglong Observing Station outside Bejing.