PARALLEL IMAGING by Richard S. Wright, Jr. Insect Eyes Deep Sky on the T hey say two heads are better than one. When it comes to astronomy, it's also true that two optics are better than one. As an amateur astrophotographer, I find it exhilarating to have two mounts running simultaneously, taking exposures of the same target. It's like getting two nights for the price of one! The first time I tried such a thing, I jokingly called it parallel processing. As a career software developer, the idea of using multiple CPUs to speed up a computational task is as obviously beneficial 64 M AY 2 0 1 9 * S K Y & T E L E S C O P E A team of astronomers uses an innovative approach to create the world's fastest telescope system. as having multiple painters working on your house at the same time. You get nearly a linear performance gain for every processing unit you can throw at it. The same goes for professional astronomy. There are some areas of research where a parallel approach to imaging might be profitable, perhaps even to the point of leapfrogging what the world's largest instruments can do. One such application came up serendipitously in a discussion between two friends having dinner at a Toronto restaurant.