Amazing Space Photography

**MrMofo** · August 04, 2009, 03:11 PM

Came across this article about Stunning Space photos and I thought I'd share.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009...e-photography/

Frankly I think whatever the hubble telescope cost, it was worth it. It's paid for itself tenfold in the amount of interest about astronomy it has generated. You can talk about how amazing space is until you're blue in the face, but being able to actually SHOW it to someone, that's priceless.

EDIT: they also make some kickass backgrounds

**Alba gu Brath** · August 04, 2009, 03:15 PM

Those photo's are cracking.

**MrMofo** · August 04, 2009, 03:28 PM

The sunset on Mars, and the leading edge of a supernova's blast wave really do it for me. So cool.

**cupoftea** · August 04, 2009, 03:38 PM

Omg, these pictures give me goose bumbs. They just make you realise how incredible tiny our world is in comparison to what's around us

**Roloc** · August 04, 2009, 03:46 PM

That link deserves some rep. Beautiful pictures

**Keravnos** · August 06, 2009, 08:33 AM

Originally Posted by Roloc

That link deserves some rep. Beautiful pictures

Indeed.
+rep

**MrMofo** · August 04, 2009, 03:47 PM

Yeah practically every one says something like *the outcrop of dust on the lower left juts out for just over X light years long *

(did the kessel run in less than 12 parsecs)

**Ältester der Motten** · August 04, 2009, 04:15 PM

I like the hugeness of some of these pictures.

Makes for nice details to drool about.

**D.B. Cooper** · August 05, 2009, 02:17 PM

Incredible.

**DekuTrash** · August 05, 2009, 07:34 PM

Amazing

God must really have a thing for neon

**Don in the North** · August 06, 2009, 06:50 AM

looks like a dragon. i love this

**Baron von Sky Hat** · August 06, 2009, 08:02 AM

A great collection of images there. I've never ceased to be amazed by pictures of the universe. I find nebulae particularly incredible, such extraordinary patterns.

It's worth pointing out that not that many space images are actually in true-colour, they're generally slightly artificial in that regards, even if only to attempt to match how they actually do look. Telescopes are after getting as much light as possible to create their image, as such, they generally have only one array of CCD cells (or whatever equivalent is being used) collecting light for one colour by means of a single filter. This means that they don't take three colours at once like regular cameras, since that would effectively divide the amount of light being collected for a given colour by three. As such, it depends how many frames were taken and with what filters as to how the raw images would look. After that, images to be published like this are created as combinations of different filters, and colour manipulation (Since if multiple filters were used, they're not necessary the same simple red-green-blue as in cameras).

This is why there was criticism of some of the pictures from one of the Mars probes. Conspiracy theorists claimed that the images were faked to make mars appear red like it was because the colours on the American flag on the rover that were in view weren't right. It was because the camera the rover is using contains 6 filters, red, green, blue, two IR filters and one violet filter. These are combined in different ways to create composite approximate-colour images. However, calibration of this combination is not perfect (even regular cameras can't claim to be 100% perfect colour, since they don't actually capture light in the same way that the human eye does). Apparently there has been controversy over this issue from as early as the Viking landers having similar slight calibration problems.
Some info, for them who's interested: http://areo.info/mer/ ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover

That's not to say that the colours are at all `fake' any more than a picture from a regular camera is, really. Just that they're taken in a different way, and might not be spot on. Nevertheless, images of space are absolutely wonderful. Pictures of and from other planets also are especially good. Who can look at a picture of Mars and not feel completely taken away? Or the famous `earth rise' picture taken by the Apollo astronauts, of earth as a blue marble far away, rising up from the horizon of the moon. (I think it was Apollo 7 astronauts who took the first and most famous one of those pictures, while in orbit around the moon.)

Hubble has taken many incredible images, and I'm glad that they did decide to service it one last time, should get a good while more of images from it yet. Not to mention that I want spectroscopic UV data from Hubble from an observation proposal from my supervisor which relates to what I do at the moment, so glad it's still up and running...

It's a pity we can't retrieve it when it's eventually retired, to have as a museum exhibit. As far as I'm aware, for Hubble, it's end will come in the form of a de-orbit burn, then one last wave goodbye in the form of a bright streak of light across an ocean...

**CBR** · August 06, 2009, 11:08 AM

Originally Posted by Baron von Sky Hat

It's worth pointing out that not that many space images are actually in true-colour, they're generally slightly artificial in that regards, even if only to attempt to match how they actually do look.

I'd say fake colors or not they are not really the issue. None of the deep space objects would be anywhere near that in real life. An astronaut flying out there in his fancy faster than light spaceship would be very disappointed at seeing some faint misty blobs at best.

Does not make the pictures less beautiful though.

CBR

**Baron von Sky Hat** · August 06, 2009, 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by CBR

I'd say fake colors or not they are not really the issue. None of the deep space objects would be anywhere near that in real life. An astronaut flying out there in his fancy faster than light spaceship would be very disappointed at seeing some faint misty blobs at best.

Does not make the pictures less beautiful though.

CBR

Oh, absolutely, I didn't mean to imply that they are worth any less for it. As I say later, they're really only as `false colour' as any picture taken by a digital camera, even on Earth.

I'm not sure what you mean about them not `be anywhere near that in real life', however? In terms of colours or simply that we can't get close enough to them to see them like this with the naked eye?

If you mean colours, then there are a fair number of images designed to be as close as possible to true-colour. For distance, yes, any time in the future, the best we're likely to see with the naked eye will be the planets, even the closest stars and nebulae are too far away to be able to reach for an awful long time.

**CBR** · August 06, 2009, 12:50 PM

Originally Posted by Baron von Sky Hat

I'm not sure what you mean about them not `be anywhere near that in real life', however? In terms of colours or simply that we can't get close enough to them to see them like this with the naked eye?

Oh I should have been more clear. By real life I meant the naked eye and the actual brightness of such objects. One example: If we were to travel much closer to the Andromeda galaxy, to say 50,000 LY distance, we would not get anything resembling the pictures that I'm sure most of us are familiar with. An astronaut would just see a faint blob in the shape of a disk with a brighter blob as the core (the inner core is what the naked eye can spot at night here on Earth) We are afterall located in one of the arms of our own galaxy and yet we can just make out the disk and center as a band of haze across the sky.

Compare this photo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Milkyway_pan1.jpg It certainly did not look like that when I was out last night

The picture apparently shows stars at magnitude 11 and the human eye can only handle up to 6.5

I do think that for most, if any, of the deep space objects the light is simply too faint for our eyes to detect the actual colors.

CBR

**IndianPrince** · August 06, 2009, 08:47 AM

+rep sir for that wonderful start of the day =)

P.S: Space is so humbling !

Prince

**Baron von Sky Hat** · August 06, 2009, 11:07 AM

I thought I'd add this link:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/index.html

The collection of NASA images, some are rather good. In addition, if you have a pair of stereoscopic glasses (those, usually card, ones with one red and one green filters over the eyes), there are a number of stereoscopic pictures too.

Many of these are less specifically stunning as the ones in the link from the OP, but only in that, possibly, they look slightly less naturally arty.

Some ones that I've found that are rather good are, from Mars missions:
Mars' Moon `Deimos': http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MR.../pia11826.html
Mars' Moon `Phobos': http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MR.../pia10369.html
Phobos and Deimos are actually pretty pathetic, as moons go, tiny unshapely things... tsk...

Mars' North Pole: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ph...s_mgs_big.html

And us! As seen from Mars orbit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MR...0303earth.html

From the Cassini-Huygens mission:

An absolutely stunning picture of Enceladus, one of the prime candidates for potentially hosting life:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca.../pia11133.html
another of Enceladus:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca.../pia08409.html

Enceladus seems likely to have oceans of liquid water beneath its surface. It has a number of geysers(/cryovolcanoes I'm not sure what exactly geologists have determined them to be) spraying out a mixture of chemicals including water vapour, nitrogen, CO2 and several organic compounds, these geysers(/cryovolcanoes) are thought to be the source of Saturns E-Ring, the furthest out band of Saturns system of rings. Between the likely presence of water, the volcanism to provide heat, and likely detection of organic compounds, I'm fairly hopeful for the potentially of actually finding life there, crazy space-bacteria of some sort. Or some sort of giant space squid, living deep in the sub-surface oceans...

We can but dream....

Saturn's moon Tethys:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca.../pia08400.html

Saturn's moon Iapetus:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca.../pia08384.html

Shadows of Saturn's rings on its surface:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca.../pia08358.html

Before looking at these last pictures, it's important to start humming the `Imperial March' from Star Wars... `That's no moon!' etc...

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/im...m?imageId=1041
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/im...m?imageId=1644
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/im...m?imageId=1352
Saturn's Moon Mimas, of course, with its likeness to a certain giant space station...

There are many more as well, I haven't included anything from Hubble, which obviously will have loads of amazing pictures.

**MrMofo** · August 06, 2009, 02:20 PM

Originally Posted by Baron von Sky Hat

I thought I'd add this link:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/index.html

The collection of NASA images, some are rather good. In addition, if you have a pair of stereoscopic glasses (those, usually card, ones with one red and one green filters over the eyes), there are a number of stereoscopic pictures too.

Many of these are less specifically stunning as the ones in the link from the OP, but only in that, possibly, they look slightly less naturally arty.

Some ones that I've found that are rather good are, from Mars missions:
Mars' Moon `Deimos': http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MR.../pia11826.html
Mars' Moon `Phobos': http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MR.../pia10369.html
Phobos and Deimos are actually pretty pathetic, as moons go, tiny unshapely things... tsk...

Mars' North Pole: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ph...s_mgs_big.html

And us! As seen from Mars orbit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MR...0303earth.html

From the Cassini-Huygens mission:

An absolutely stunning picture of Enceladus, one of the prime candidates for potentially hosting life:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca.../pia11133.html
another of Enceladus:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca.../pia08409.html

Enceladus seems likely to have oceans of liquid water beneath its surface. It has a number of geysers(/cryovolcanoes I'm not sure what exactly geologists have determined them to be) spraying out a mixture of chemicals including water vapour, nitrogen, CO2 and several organic compounds, these geysers(/cryovolcanoes) are thought to be the source of Saturns E-Ring, the furthest out band of Saturns system of rings. Between the likely presence of water, the volcanism to provide heat, and likely detection of organic compounds, I'm fairly hopeful for the potentially of actually finding life there, crazy space-bacteria of some sort. Or some sort of giant space squid, living deep in the sub-surface oceans...

We can but dream....

Saturn's moon Tethys:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca.../pia08400.html

Saturn's moon Iapetus:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca.../pia08384.html

Shadows of Saturn's rings on its surface:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca.../pia08358.html

Before looking at these last pictures, it's important to start humming the `Imperial March' from Star Wars... `That's no moon!' etc...

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/im...m?imageId=1041
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/im...m?imageId=1644
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/im...m?imageId=1352
Saturn's Moon Mimas, of course, with its likeness to a certain giant space station...

There are many more as well, I haven't included anything from Hubble, which obviously will have loads of amazing pictures.

the pics of mars moons are awesome. I might be a little biased though as it reminds me of the scenes in Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars series where they blow them up to knock the space elevator out of orbit, and those scenes are amazing.

**Nazgûl Killer** · August 06, 2009, 11:19 PM

Beautiful, but scary...
Just think how big all those things must be... Makes you feel as small as an Atom.

**MrMofo** · August 06, 2009, 11:56 PM

Originally Posted by Nazgûl Killer

Beautiful, but scary...
Just think how big all those things must be... Makes you feel as small as an Atom.

yeah hey. It's funny, but for me, the pic which moves me the most is the sunset on mars. Most of them are truly unrelatable, they're too huge, too vast, they're cosmic. But the sunset on mars ... that's within my mind's reach. I can look at that and say, Wow, that's a PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON ANOTHER PLANET, and I can see the sun on the horizon, so small, and know that it's OUR sun, good ol sol, and be awed by it.