Comments on: 384mb panoramic view of the Orion Nebula

384mb panoramic view of the Orion Nebula

obeygiant — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 23:51:29 -0800

Orion Nebula in very high resolution gorgeous

By: obeygiant

obeygiant — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 23:51:45 -0800

take a look

By: null terminated

null terminated — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 00:02:12 -0800

Here's a smaller version to preview.

By: exlotuseater

exlotuseater — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 00:06:02 -0800

Breathtaking.

By: greycap

greycap — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 00:57:30 -0800

Breathtaking is exactly the right word. Wow.

By: polyglot

polyglot — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 01:30:31 -0800

Looks like a composite to me - some parts are sharper than others and the aperture bars on the stars are at at least two distinct angles.

By: invisible_al

invisible_al — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 02:01:00 -0800

"This extensive study took 105 Hubble orbits to complete. All imaging instruments aboard the telescope – the ACS, Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, and Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer – were used simultaneously to study the nebula. The ACS mosaic covers approximately the apparent angular size of the full moon." Beautiful stuff. Also I love the fact the image is so big they have to put a warning on it.

By: BlackLeotardFront

BlackLeotardFront — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 02:03:43 -0800

That's ... crazy. Awesome, thanks!

By: The Tensor

The Tensor — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 02:16:43 -0800

You people won't believe it, but if you zoom in and look below and right of the center of the image, you can just make out a couple of attack ships on fire. They're just tiny points of light, though, and very hard to distinguish from the light of the surrounding nebula—like tears in rain.

By: misteraitch

misteraitch — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 02:30:38 -0800

Very beautiful—thank you.

By: BlackLeotardFront

BlackLeotardFront — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 02:31:08 -0800

For the record, I just broke my eyes looking at hundreds of incredibly high-res photos at the Hubble Gallery... Try looking at this (1mb) without crying, for one reason or another. jesus!

By: hoverboards don't work on water

hoverboards don't work on water — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 03:06:04 -0800

It belongs in a museum.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 05:39:45 -0800

very nice

By: melt away

melt away — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 05:47:49 -0800

Looks like a composite to me Orian Nebula ACS Mosiac

By: melt away

melt away — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 05:48:08 -0800

Mosaic even...

By: polyglot

polyglot — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 06:30:20 -0800

/me is a dumbass today.

By: alumshubby

alumshubby — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 06:40:07 -0800

My hard drive is already slowly dying, and trying to view that 23Mb image in Paint Shop Pro locked it up.

By: reformedjerk

reformedjerk — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 06:53:18 -0800

I recall reading in the LA TImes a couple of years ago (around 2003?) that NASA has artists touch up the orginal Hubble pictures by adding colours to otherwise black and white photos. I can't seem to find that article again, so I could just be dreaming this up. Has anyone else heard about this? But in any case, this picture is still pretty to look at.

By: Acey

Acey — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 07:17:47 -0800

Info on the colours.

By: Busithoth

Busithoth — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 07:39:05 -0800

aye, that it is. [pretty, that is]

By: jjj606

jjj606 — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 07:58:27 -0800

Great photo, thanks. Here's my favorite - the Hubble Deep Field: Half size image 350kb The Hubble Deep Field image covers a speck of the sky only about the width of a dime 75 feet away. Gazing into this small field, Hubble uncovered a bewildering assortment of at least 1,500 galaxies at various stages of evolution. Almost every object in the photo is a galaxy. From the Hubble Deep Field site.

By: Skygazer

Skygazer — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 08:16:09 -0800

Breathtaking.

By: Flamingoroad

Flamingoroad — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 08:52:26 -0800

wow...that is jawdropping! thank you

By: PurplePorpoise

PurplePorpoise — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 10:23:20 -0800

It belongs in a museum. No Dr. Hoverboards... you belong in a museum! It's fantastic renditions of our little spec of the universe which helps make me realize (that I can't realize) just how big (just the) visible universe is.

By: todbot

todbot — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 11:07:24 -0800

I'll tell you one thing about the universe, though. The universe is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just us... seems like an awful waste of space. Right?

By: Meagan

Meagan — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 11:38:43 -0800

That is the most beautiful picture I've ever seen. Thanks!

By: ae4rv

ae4rv — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 11:41:00 -0800

Check out this wide-field view of the entire constellation of Orion. Click on it for a much larger version. This has to be one of my all time favorite works of an amateur astronomer. If you have some binocculars or a small telescope (and a clear night), point it at the middle "star" in Orion's sword (M42). You'll see that it is actually several stars surrounded by a beautiful ghostly grey-blue glow. This is the Great Orion Nebula. The reds and violets you see in photographs are only possible in long exposures and not to our relatively insensitive eyes. Yes, you can see it even in a light-polluted city but the darker the better...

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 12:14:19 -0800

Beautiful. (detail)

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 13:19:33 -0800

very cool

By: jiawen

jiawen — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 13:47:38 -0800

The Tensor, I think it was actually supposed to be Orion the constellation, not the nebula. The constellation has "shoulders", while the nebula does not. /pedant Todbot, I just finished re-reading Contact. What a beautiful novel. ... In this specific image, is it false colors or not? I was a little (only a little) disappointed when I found out the "Pillars of Creation" image was done with false colors. ... I just did some observing last night. Saw Jupiter and its moons for the first time -- totally cool. Orion had already set by the time I got up on the roof, but I saw M42 the last time I went up. It really is beautiful. My favorite, though, is still the Pleiades.

By: neuron

neuron — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 14:04:06 -0800

I can see the Orion nebula pretty easily in my 10x50 binoculars, even from urban sites. There are some really large (i.e., nearby) nebulae out there. The North America nebula, in the constellation of Cygnus, covers a patch of sky ten times the size of the full moon. It's barely visible in binoculars (telescopes have too small a field of view) from remote (dark) viewing sites. Because our eyes are relatively insensitive to its red light, the only way to really see it is by photography. Interestingly, nebulae don't get easier to see when you get closer to them, despite what you see on Star Trek. If you get in your spaceship and move closer to the nebula, the light intensity grows (proportional to the square of the distance), but the apparent size of the object increases (proportional to the square of the distance) and the two effects cancel each other.