Hubble Telescope

[Gallitin]

I was watching the History Channel 2 earlier and saw a documentary on the Hubble Telescope.  I decided to Google some images as I haven't looked into it much before.  Pretty amazing photos and crazy to believe how much is out there.

At one point they said over a 10 day period during Christmas break they pointed it at an area without any visible stars.  It returned several new galaxy's with hundreds of thousands of stars in each.  Just crazy how small we are and difficult to comprehend. I hope in my lifetime we get more information.

Some of my favorite images, they almost don't look real, pretty incredible.

[Emphatic]

Ah the pillars of creation, truly one of the most awe inspiring pictures I have ever seen it is among my background pictures in my rotation. A personal favorite of mine is the Ultra Deep Field, shows the furthest most dimmest light we have ever seen from the earliest time in the universe as we know it and a video to show you how small of an area we are looking at compared to what we see when we look up at the night sky. they just released a new infrared version as well its the second one. It is the highest most deep shot of our universe we have ever seen. It amazes me to think that every speck of light in these photos is another galaxy.

 

And the one you were talking about, in comparison the are of the sky this picture covers would be the size of a dime when viewed from 75 feet away, just shows you how vast the universe is and how small we are compared to it.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Emphatic

[Gallitin]

Can't remember in that pic, didn't they say it was like a few thousand galaxies in just that small image?

[Genesis]

I've got a ton of these for my background.  That's how I learned the sun is actually white when viewed from space.

[Fizzlefuse]

Images like these fuel dreams. What's so mind boggling is that the images that we see are not of things as they are now but as they were as light traveled many thousands, even millions or billions of lightyears before we could pick it up. Just the concept of the universe being THAT big is crazy.

I am really REALLY curious to see what beautiful things CIG will add to the game for us to gawk at.

[Emphatic]

Can't remember in that pic, didn't they say it was like a few thousand galaxies in just that small image?

Approx 10,000 visible galaxies

[Leviticus_Valdren]

Too bad the pillars of creation have been obliterated by a galactic sized super nova 1000 years from now (actually it was 6000 years ago but we are 7000 light years away). At least that's when we will be able to witness the live destruction 3035 give or take a few decades. Sent from my XT1031 using Tapatalk

[Leviticus_Valdren]

Sent from my XT1031 using Tapatalk

[Osclin]

Bless the Hubble Telescope, the first real space success after the Challenger disaster.  I remember watching the Challenger explode on live TV when I was six, and until the Hubble launched(and was subsequently fixed to make it usable) all my adoration of space seemed simply to be a particularly cruel jest, like Star Trek was mocking me.  Then the first clear images started to be released...bliss.  

Now we just have to hope that congress can stay the fuck out of the way of the James Webb telescope.  I may have largely made peace with the fact that I'll never visit another planet, but I'll be damned if I'll let politics screw me out of my viewing.

[Gallitin]

Bless the Hubble Telescope, the first real space success after the Challenger disaster.  I remember watching the Challenger explode on live TV when I was six, and until the Hubble launched(and was subsequently fixed to make it usable) all my adoration of space seemed simply to be a particularly cruel jest, like Star Trek was mocking me.  Then the first clear images started to be released...bliss.  

Now we just have to hope that congress can stay the fuck out of the way of the James Webb telescope.  I may have largely made peace with the fact that I'll never visit another planet, but I'll be damned if I'll let politics screw me out of my viewing.

Is that the one were the flower shaped shield deploys in front of the telescope like 30,000 miles or something to keep light from bending around so they can look directly at the earth like planet without interference?  If so I just watched something on that last night, pretty cool.

[Osclin]

Probably a different satellite, @Gallitin, the James Webb is designed for deep astronomical observation, not locating/studying extrasolar planets.  This one has a large sun shield it deploys to keep light from the sun(or reflected off planets) from heating the mirrors.  Won't claim to understand the science behind it, but apparently they need to keep the thing about 50 kelvin for optimal functionality.  It focuses on infrared spectrum, so it should be able to peer back to the oldest stars and galaxies(the wikipedia article tells me it should be able to see the first galaxies forming in the first couple hundred million years of the universe's existence.)