Moore's Law takes on the universe; New astronomy with giga-pixel imagers and peta-byte data archives

Astronomy is looking up! The electronic detectors used by astronomers have expanded exponentially, doubling in size every 2 years since they were invented about three decades ago. This matches the famous ldquoMoore's Lawrdquo describing the growth of computing power. The Pan-STARRS PS1 telescope in Hawaii is the latest leap in this development, with a revolutionary 1.4 billion pixel camera that has been dubbed ldquothe 18th wonder of the technological worldrdquo. This is just the first of 4 telescopes, and still more ambitious proposals are on the drawing board.