Blink comparator

A blink comparator is like a special tool that helps us compare two images of the same thing. Imagine you have two pictures of yourself, one from when you were very little and one from now. If you put one picture on your left and the other on your right, you can flip back and forth between them to see what's different. That's kind of like what a blink comparator does.

But instead of using your eyes to blink back and forth, the blink comparator uses a machine to do it really fast. The machine shows you one picture and then the other picture really quickly, over and over again. This helps you see small changes or differences between the two pictures that you might not notice if you just looked at them by themselves.

Scientists use blink comparators a lot to study things like stars and planets. They might take a picture of the sky one night, and then take another picture another night to see if anything has changed. By using the blink comparator, they can quickly compare the two pictures and spot any differences. It's like a superpower that helps them see things they couldn't see before!