Bill Gates and ex-Microsoft executive Charles Simonyi have donated a combined $30 million to the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which will feature the largest digital camera ever constructed. Scientists say it will provide a "color movie" of the universe.

The donation will go partly to the construction of LSST's three giant mirrors, which will enable it to survey more of the sky faster than any other telescope. With its three-billion pixel camera, the telescope will produce 30 terabytes of images that will be immediately available to the public online.

"LSST is truly an internet telescope, which will put terabytes of data each night into the hands of anyone that wants to explore it," said Gates, who donated $10 million to the project. "The 8.4 meter LSST telescope (is) the ultimate network peripheral device to explore the universe."

Gates and Simonyi join Google as major tech industry backers of the LSST. The telescope is a showcase for demonstrating how computing power can enable scientific advances. By using three mirrors instead of two, the telescope will image more than 50 times the amount of sky as other telescopes. Its speed and wide field will allow scientists to constantly scan the sky, turning out time-lapse movies of the dynamic universe surrounding us. The ability to quickly detect changes in the sky will help scientists spot asteroids, like the one that might strike Mars this month, which scientists fear could also hit Earth with disastrous consequences.

But it won't be only heavyweight physicists who can explore the telescope's unprecedented abilities. The open-source nature of the project means that amateur astronomers will be able to harness one of the most remarkable datasets in the world, looking for comets, asteroids, supernovae and other phenomena.