Guest guest Posted January 12, 2010 Report Share Posted January 12, 2010 If y'all don't know I'm quite into Astronomy. So the other day I see that Hubble Space Telescope has released a new Deep Field picture that shows galaxies down to 26.5 - 27 magnitude. Hard to describe what that means, but the higher the number the fainter the object. From a very dark sky (no light pollution, which is very hard to find anymore) naked eye is able to detect down around 6 to 6.5. Binoculars typically go to about 9, but I'm getting sidetracked again (go figure). What I wanted to show you is a portion of that " picture " . I discovered it in the lower right corner upon zooming in. The image is here http://mitchellsportsphotography.com/astro/Face%20of%20God.png and I've dubbed it " The Face of God " , doesn't it look like a face??? Here's the full image http://mitchellsportsphotography.com/astro/Hubble%20Goods.jpg Seems He's smiling on us. Love, Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 12, 2010 Report Share Posted January 12, 2010 Hi Bill, Yes it's a smile all right. Thats great - and I appreciate your sidetracking - it helps put into perspective the naked eye versus the telescope - are we even a small grain of sand here? And yet still the smile ... Thank you so much - are you showing this to kids still? Am I remembering correctly? A K awakened man teaching about astronomy.... seeing the big picture - the real big picture.. now thats cool - I mean I know you are not a teacher but were you volunteering your time with this with kids ??? Or did I just go off orbit? It's happened before ... Thank you Bill - lots of love Mia D (aka Debs) , Bill <astronutski wrote: > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 12, 2010 Report Share Posted January 12, 2010 Oh my, Bill. My heart jumped out of my chest when I took a peek at the full picture of those stars/planets bursting with light. You get to experience this every day?! Wow, wow. The big smiley face is pretty amazing too. wow. -Danielle , Bill <astronutski wrote: > > If y'all don't know I'm quite into Astronomy. > > Seems He's smiling on us. > > Love, > Bill > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 12, 2010 Report Share Posted January 12, 2010 Hehe, yep, thanks Mia, you're quite on-orbit there, dang good memory there!!! The Arctic Blast has settled upon us here in the Frozen Tundra and although that never used to slow me down (I have a picture of me observing with my portable telescope outside and the temp was -4, but that was many moons ago), it has indeed slowed me down at this ancient age of 44, LOL. So, I haven't had the chance to " enlighten " any more kids with the scope lately, but there is talk brewing in our smallish (40ish) group of starting a drive for a permanent observatory out in the dark skies away from town, with grants of course, there is no way we could fund it. Would be for the benefit of the public and especially the kids. Wouldn't be too bad for us old geezers too (the ones who don't set up scopes in winter anymore :^) So wish us luck in that major endeavor please. Will be a lot of hard work, but all of us have the drive, it's a passion, and a good cause too, would be a shame to lose the night sky to the ever-expanding light pollution. Also, I've uploaded another image, this one is the same wide field view but with a box showing the section where the face is. Not a revolutionary discovery or anything, it's right there. http://mitchellsportsphotography.com/astro/Hubble%20Goods-box.jpg Also, one more note on the magnitude scale mentioned in my OP, Every 5 magnitudes is a difference of 100x, or each full number is 2.5x brighter (or dimmer depending on which direction you're talking about) than the one before it. For instance, a star at 0 magnitude is 2.5x dimmer than a star at -1 magnitude. Brightest star in the sky? Anyone? Nope, not Polaris!!! It's Sirius the dog star in Canis Major at -1.44 magnitude. Venus, -4... Full Moon, -13... Sun, -26. Funny thing, ask 100 people (Northern Hemisphere) what the brightest star in the sky is and about 80 of them will say an emphatic " Polaris! " . For the record, Polaris the north star is " famous " because it's the closest bright star to Earth's axis (it's not exact, but very close), the star that all others rotate around. When you see a long exposure photo of the star trails, Polaris is the one that looks like it isn't moving. DANGIT, there I go again. Sorry for going OT, let me bring it back. What thoughts does that image above provoke? For me it is utterly amazing to peer back in time 13 billion years, the time when light left those sources, galaxies. Wonder what the original Creation was like? Wonder what was there BEFORE time and space was created? Very interesting. I can't help but think of other life forms out there. I mean if there are all of us on a planet circling one star, and there are billions of stars in our galaxy alone, there's a pretty good chance there's some form of life out there. And then look at that image and see 7500 galaxies. And that's just an extremely tiny pinprick of space we're looking at. Mind boggling, but makes me very happy to think about. Ok, done with that, maybe I need to go post in one of my Astro forums now, LOL. Sorry for going off tangent again. Love, Bill , " flowerpowers7777 " <flowerpowers7777 wrote: > > Hi Bill, > > Yes it's a smile all right. Thats great - and I appreciate your sidetracking - it helps put into perspective the naked eye versus the telescope - are we even a small grain of sand here? > And yet still the smile ... > Thank you so much - are you showing this to kids still? > Am I remembering correctly? > A K awakened man teaching about astronomy.... seeing the big picture - the real big picture.. now thats cool - I mean I know you are not a teacher but were you volunteering your time with this with kids ??? Or did I just go off orbit? > It's happened before ... > > Thank you Bill - lots of love > Mia D (aka Debs) > > , Bill <astronutski@> wrote: > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 12, 2010 Report Share Posted January 12, 2010 Hehe! it looks like sort of a " scarey " smiley face....more like a monkey face than human to me. LOL! Linda , Bill <astronutski wrote: > Seems He's smiling on us. > > Love, > Bill > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 13, 2010 Report Share Posted January 13, 2010 Hi Bill, I think at any age hanging out in the frozen tundra is not so easy! (: Best wishes for your endeavor and I like your tangents...I always learn something! Thank you! Glad I'm not out of orbit! ha Deb (Mia D) , " William " <astronutski wrote: > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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