Behold Astronomy’s Newest Telescope: A Nintendo Game Boy Camera

Astronomers have just crowned the most unlikely champion of cosmic imaging: a 1998 Nintendo Game Boy Camera. With a laughably tiny 0.014-megapixel sensor and a grand total of two bits of data—yielding just four shades of gray—the retro gadget has been strapped to a 60-inch telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory in Los Angeles, California, via a custom 3D-printed mount. The telescope itself is a historic beast: when it debuted in 1908, it was the largest and most advanced in the world, and it was the first to photograph stars beyond our galaxy. Yet somehow, the Game Boy Camera, released 90 years later, outclasses it in sheer absurdity.

Chris Graue, the creator behind the project, first aimed the rig at the Moon, but the lunar surface was too close for the telescope’s focus, leaving the camera unable to resolve much. Undeterred, he turned to Jupiter, where the Game Boy Camera managed to capture the gas giant’s stripes with surprising clarity. The resulting images are now under scrutiny by scientists, though they may have to wait a while—the camera can only store 30 photos at a time, and it prints them out on a thermal receipt printer, a nostalgic throwback to the 1990s. While the Game Boy Camera’s achievements are undeniably quirky, the real heavyweights of astronomy are still in the game.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory boasts a 3,200-megapixel camera and plans to capture 1,000 images per night, generating roughly 20 terabytes of data. Meanwhile, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, set to operate from Earth’s Lagrange Point 2 a billion miles away, aims to discover billions of new galaxies. Yet even these titans may soon be overshadowed—not by better technology, but by a plague of satellite constellations.

Scientists warn that tens of thousands of orbiting satellites, like those in SpaceX’s Starlink network, could soon ruin up to 96% of future astronomical photos by photobombing the sky. In the face of such cosmic interference, the humble Game Boy Camera might just be the most reliable option left.