The deepest view ever obtained of Centaurus A

]reply to post by elevenaugust


Wow.. Absolutely, astonishing

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by elevenaugust

 

It's saddening to realize that almost every star in that picture was probably dead by the time its light reached the photographer's lens. At least we'll have something to remember them by.

Only Some of the blue or to classify them correctly the O,B and A stars the rest in the yellow end of the scale burn a lot slower.

BTW... nice pics OP.

Originally posted by smithjustinb
Would you say all of these astronomical photos show real colors?

Real colours when red/green/blue filters are used. False colours when narrow-band filters are used, or when it's an infrared, radio, or UV image.

More information here: hubblesite.org...

reply to post by elevenaugust


Beautiful. Just Beautiful was exactly what i was going to say

Stunning work!

Looking at images like this makes me amazed at how some of us think that we are "alone" in this universe.

Thankyou!

Originally posted by institute
Stunning work!

Looking at images like this makes me amazed at how some of us think that we are "alone" in this universe.

Thankyou!

I'm not really sure how many people really think we are the only intelligent life in the universe. I think most people feel that there is some other life out there somewhere in the vastness of space, perhaps asking the same questions we are asking about possibly being alone.

However, I think "alone" could be thought of as a relative term. Think of a person stuck on a tiny desert island. That person could be considered to be "alone" and go unnoticed by the rest of the world, even though there is a world of people beyond the island's shores. Earth may be like that desert island: a tiny part of a vast universe with other beings on other worlds, but still basically alone in that vastness because it can so easily go unnoticed.

And before someone says "we can't go unnoticed -- they can detect us by our radio broadcasts", please be aware at how tiny the volume of space is that our radio broadcasts have ever reached. We have been sending out radio broadcasts for only about 100 years (and TV broadcast later than that), so that means the sphere or bubble that those radio waves have traveled so far is only 200 light years (LY) across.

This image shows a representation of our Milky Way galaxy, and the total extent of our radio broadcasts. That tiny blue dot is how far our "intelligence" can be detected through radio. Some other alien species would need to be inside that blue dot from them to detect our radio waves to notice we are here. It's quite a miniscule area -- especially considering that this is only showing our own galaxy. Our galaxy is only one of hundreds of billions of galaxies. Considering the size of the universe, that blue dot is so tiny, it borders on being non-existent.



It may be true that there are other remote ways of determining that intelligent life may exist on earth -- such as by doing a spectral analysis of our atmosphere and finding that we are burning fossil fuels (i.e., an industrial society), but even that would have only should up in our atmosphere about 250 years ago, and the light from our "industrial age" atmosphere has only gone as far as a 500 LY bubble -- which is still miniscule.

What I'm saying is that there may be other intelligent life out there, but unless they notice we are here, we could may be able to think of ourselves as being "alone", just like the man on the unnoticed desert island would consider himself to be alone, even though he knows other people exist in the world. For all intents and purposes, we may very well consider ourselves to be alone until some other race notices us (or vice versa).


source for above image:
How far in space our radio broadcasts extends?

reply to post by elevenaugust


It doesn't matter what it is. Vrais or Faux these images are beautiful and hopefully someday we will be able to truly see the heavens that surround us. There is no doubt in my mind that some day we will have the chance to go see these places and move through space and time like free spirits just enjoying the beauty. Beautiful pictures... Makes one laugh at the thought that everything was just an accident. Devine creation if you ask me..

Originally posted by Opportunia
While I find most of the images beautiful, I think some would be better if they would stop using the SAME flare filter on the bright stars. The images are using a filter that interprets certain parts of the image into a flare that has an X type shape to it. Stars don't all shine like that and it bothers my eyes when I see it since I "know" it isn't really there. It has been added to the image to enhance the brighter stars but it ends up looking strange when three stars on the same image have the same flare. I have the same type of filter in my photoshop filter set.

All the other images are stunning.

edit on 11-6-2013 by Opportunia because: clarification

it is NOT a flare filter. The crosses you see is a result of the type of telescope being used.... all telescopes using a spider to support the secondary mirror WILL have the same type of artifacts.

For me, the most sobering thought when looking into the kaleidoscope of deep space is that there's a good chance that what you're looking at may not actually be there any longer.

reply to post by elevenaugust


I am astounded at your patience, Thank you this is beautiful.

Originally posted by LABTECH767
reply to post by elevenaugust

 

I am astounded at your patience, Thank you this is beautiful.

Thank you, but just to clear up things (and sorry if I wasn't enough clear in my post), and as, like you, some ATS members possibly think that that's me who have done it, I'm NOT the author of this Centaurus A photo.

Full credits goes to Rolf Olsen

A special thanks to Soylent Green Is People for all the pertinent and pedagogic explanations.

reply to post by elevenaugust


When I look at images like this, I can't help but wonder, if there are planets, how bright are their skys. Judging from the number and positions of all the other stars and the reflections of light by the dust clouds; it must be spectacular.

Thanks a bundle.

reply to post by smithjustinb


Yeah, I wish someone would make a thread explaining this, complete with photos showing what it would look like if they just left them alone, and with minimal enhancements, and so on up to maximum enhancements. Then I could decide for myself if the beauty is worth the lies.

I can't be bothered to look it up on my own, or to even attempt a useless ats search. Someone has to make a new one.

Originally posted by teamcommander
reply to post by elevenaugust

 

When I look at images like this, I can't help but wonder, if there are planets, how bright are their skys. Judging from the number and positions of all the other stars and the reflections of light by the dust clouds; it must be spectacular.

Thanks a bundle.

The skies on those planets would probably be just as dark, or almost as dark as our skies. We also live in a huge galaxy with trillions of stars, gas clouds, etc. But we can only see the Milky Way is a faint foggy band of light, and a couple of galaxies and nebula also as very dim foggy patches of light, without any colour.

Originally posted by 3n19m470
reply to post by smithjustinb

 

Yeah, I wish someone would make a thread explaining this, complete with photos showing what it would look like if they just left them alone, and with minimal enhancements, and so on up to maximum enhancements. Then I could decide for myself if the beauty is worth the lies.

I can't be bothered to look it up on my own, or to even attempt a useless ats search. Someone has to make a new one.

Read through this thread, it explains a lot. You can also Google many amateur photos where they just hooked up a regular camera to a telescope and took a regular picture. You can also get in touch with someone who does this sort of thing, and enquire about their techniques. www.covingtoninnovations.com...

From what I gather, the post-processing is primarily for adjusting brightness, contrast, and saturation, as well as combating light pollution and optical artifacts like vignetting. It isn't something that renders the image "false", but it does make it look better. All professional photographers do that to some extent. There's no reason to think that all astrophotographers are gifted graphics designers that add something that is not there. The objects you see are real, the colours are real too as long as they're using red/green/blue filters.

I sincerely hope you and others with the same view drop your suspicions and distrust, learn more about what astrophotographers do, and hopefully appreciate these images even more.

P.S. There is plenty of documentation and information about astrophotography techniques.
en.wikipedia.org...
starmatt.com...

WOW! This looks like art! Great wouldnt even begin to describe these pictures.

Originally posted by LordDerpingtonSmythe
Artist impressions and extensive post processing lead to an unatural result.
Lets take it out of context and into the world of music creation.
In the studio you can take a voice of a dull singer and use post processing to make
them seem more exciting and vibrant. Which is fine until they perform on stage.

That is not to take away from the expertise required to create these images.
Its certainly not a set of skills I possess.

LordDS - your example is a poor one. Have you ever actually spent any time in a music studio working with recording artists? The truth is you cannot do much with post processing that you could not also do live. A dull singer is a dull singer and no post-production will do anything about that. It is true that there are great studio singers who really aren't good public performers and perhaps this is what you are talking about? But then this would have no bearing as an analogy for this discussion. So...

The point I'd like to make here is that the process of EVERY recording (whether photographic or audio, whether digital, analogue or even in the human memory) inserts some processing or another into the record. Absolutely every recording is therefore in some way distorted. Complaining about this is pointless. But pretending that this makes "best possible recordings" out to be nothing more than an "artists representation" is simply untruthful. The one is a recording and the other is an artwork. Each has their place but they are two different things.

These images seem to be a great example of the best possible recording and representation of heavenly bodies that we would otherwise never be able to observe. They are certainly very beautiful but they are not artworks.

Why is there an urge to try to debase or debunk EVERYTHING that appears on this site?

reply to post by elevenaugust


Yeah pretty misleading title. Should say Deepest view by an amateur. you can easily get deeper and better views on google.