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While I love the Astronomy Picture Of The Day and the similarly-cool Hubblesite pics of this event, All the good-sized images have that annoying twinkly-crosshairs look to them. The Hubblesite pics include this small image without them, but all of the large-format images that I can find have the "star filter" applied. Does anyone know where I could find a large, unaltered image or images?
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Hubble took a series of 4 photos, and you all have been looking only at the last of them. Also is a link in case you want large versions of each individual photo, and another for links for all the text, images, and video concerning the event. I'm surprised Doctor Fishboy never pointed this out.

Hubble took a series of 4 photos, and you all have been looking only at the last of them. Also is a link in case you want large versions of each individual photo, and another for links for all the text, images, and video concerning the event. I'm surprised Doctor Fishboy never pointed this out.

Hubble took a series of 4 photos, and you all have been looking only at the last of them. Also is a link in case you want large versions of each individual photo, and another for links for all the text, images, and video concerning the event. I'm surprised Doctor Fishboy never pointed this out.

Yeah, they seem sufficiently rad hardened on earth because they are being shielded from most of the cosmic and sun's radiation by the earth's atmosphere and magnetic field. In space, though, it's another matter. The Pentium 4 I'm typing this on would be unreliable at best, and wouldn't work at all at worst

Your ignoring the obvious. If this is such a big problem, then NASA could use some of the billions that they use on the shuttle to overcome it. The fact is that it is no longer a problem

Quoting the article;

"NASA administrator Daniel Goldin said the Pentium will help NASA "plumb the depths of the oceans of [Jupiter moon] Europa, take samples from Mars and explore the outer limits of our own solar system."

Sounds to me that pratical unmanned missions are possible right now. NASA spends all of its money on the shuttle and ISS though.

As for it costing trillions of dollars? I don't think so. But, maybe this time we should just ask NASA, "Ok, how much realistically (i.e. taking into account unforseen problems, test failures, redesigns, etc.) will it cost?" instead of, "Ok, you've got this much to spend. Can you do it?" And then decide if it's too expensive

In the middle of the seventies, NASA was asked how much it would cost to go to mars. There response? $500 billion dollars Knowing that NASA has a history of underestimating everything by a factor of least three (look at the price of all the International Space Station overruns)-- that's 1.5 trillion, and that's 1973 dollars. Today it would cost much more. so yes, it would be trillions of dollars

That wasn't the point of that statement. What I meant was seeing what the earth looks like from space or the moon IN PERSON. I would imagine that no picture in existence could do it justice.

It's only significant for the single astronaut standing there. So we should spend billions of dollars for the view?? So the astronaut can stand there and be awed?? The experience?? The Hubble space telescope takes great pictures of far away places, and an astronaut is not required for this. Unmanned probes have and can accomplish the same thing with the planets.

But the only way we are going to learn how to make space travel safer for humans is by doing it.

That's just it. We aren't learning anything from patching up old shuttle technology and flying it. Nothing is being gained from it. To spend billions on another "safer" vehicle to do exactly what the shuttle is doing makes no sense either

Having a man in space is "neat", but that's all that it is. the cost is not justified

I understand what you are trying to say -- because its the same thing NASA has been trying to say.

In fact though, it's more like a religion, not science.

Here is the proof.

From the DWN (January 21st):
[...]
Debian older than Humanity? Tomas Pospisek reported that the Debian Swirl can be cleary seen on one of the pictures taken by NASA's orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. For example, check the lower right hand corner of the image. Perhaps this is proof that the seeds for Debian were sowed long before the dawn of humanity.
[...]

fRinK

The loss of Mt. Stromlo Observatory facility is very great loss.

A number of the obvious sites related to Stromlo are down, due to the fire or due to the wide spread power outages in the area. I will make links to indirect and cached pages.

Established in 1924, the Commonwealth Observatory at Mount Stromlo, on the outskirts of Canberra. Commonwealth Observatory was recognized for its important research into the origin and future of the universe.

Astronomers at Mount Stromlo made outstanding contributions to astronomy. It would be difficult to list all of the important contributions to Astronomy made by the people working at Mt. Stromlo. Now, a few come to mind:

• Stromlo research in the 1950s provided the first clue that the Magellanic Clouds had evolved differently from our own galaxy. These results gave us important insights into galactic evolution.
• In the 1990's, astronomers from Stromlo and Sliding Springs (many km away from the fire area) showed that about 90% of disc galaxies (such as our own) are greatly influenced by ''dark matter'', in their galaxies' halos.
• They made important observations in the first hours after Supernova 1987A (the first naked eye supernova in several centuries of years) was discovered.
• Then there is the sort of work such as the Stromlo Abell Cluster Supernova Search
• The Massive Compact Halo Objects (Macho project that was the first to record many microlensing events in our Galaxy as well as in the LMC.
• Then there was all of that tedious, but vital work of spectral classification of southern stars.
• Many of the first parallax distances to Southern stars were first made at Stromlo.
• The list goes on and on ... I am sorry that I must leave out so many other significant contributions!

One of the principal instruments at Stromlo was the 74-inch (188-cm) reflecting telescope. The 74-inch telescope was erected in 1953, and until the completion in 1974 of the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring, this was the largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. In 1982, it was used to discover the fossil star CD-38245: a star so old that it is made almost purely of gases left over from the big bang.

It also was home scopes such as the robotic 50-inch (127-cm). It was an excellent example of how an older telescope could be outfitted with new controls and instruments to perform innovative work. The MACHO project was conducted on the 50 inch.

Two historical scopes come to mind, the Oddie, and the Yale-Columbia telescope:

The Oddie, was a wonderful 9-inch Newtonian telescope. The Victorian MP, James Oddie, presented this telescope to the Commonwealth government for use in the proposed Commonwealth Observatory. It was installed on the site at "Mt Strom" (as Stromlo was originally known) in September 1911. Over the years the Oddie telescope has made valuable contributions to Southern Hemisphere astronomy; it did some of the first measurements of the brightness, color and spectral classification of southern stars.

The Yale-Columbia telescope, 26-inch Grubb long-focus refractor was erected at this site for the determination of parallaxes of southern stars (it was the largest refractor in the southern hemisphere when first installed.

Moreover, there were other scopes as well ... But alas, from what can be seen from the air at this time, most, if not all of those telescopes have been lost. At appears that heat from the burning of the nearby bush /trees was hot enough to melt many of the domes at the observatory.

The Canberra Astronomical Society used the Stromlo lecture hall for their monthly meetings. During public nights, the public had access to a domed C14 scope, the Oddie, and a number of scopes brought to the site by members ... all through the hard work and generous efforts of the Canberra Astronomical Society.

I had the privilege of observing at Mt Stromlo several times and spoke at one of the CAS meetings. I still can recall flying down from the US to a CAS member's home to see SN1987, . I was there only 36 hours after the naked eye supernova was first observed. I still recall seeing the single star, at a distance of over 168,000 light-years, change in color and rightness over the course of an evening. I was one of the most important astronomical events I have had the honor to witness. I recall that every scope up at Mt Stromlo was all pointed at the Large Magellanic Could where SN 1987A was blazing away. The previous observing board schedule was cancelled as people raced to collect as much early critical data as they could in the early hours of the event.

I had the privilege of being with the members of the Canberra Astronomical Society on two of my several total solar eclipses: 1991 in Hawaii, US and most recently the 2001 eclipse in Ceduna, AU.

(Both trips count among my several successful viewings of solar totality. Although the 1991 Hawaii was a close call that was saved because my friend (the one who introduced me to the CAS) broke his arm a very short time before the Eclipse ... which allowed both of us to have a full view of Totality in Hawaii ... but that is another story!)

My best wishes and heart felt sorrow go out to all of those people who worked so hard to make Mt. Stromlo such a wonderful place for the public to visit and who helped the observatory make many important contributions to Astronomy. Much of what was lost cannot be replaced. Still it is my hope that those who are left will be able to rebuild something anew out this tragedy.

UKIRT has had a series of upgrades starting in about 1990, including several generations of IR imagers, the addition of active optics, etc.. Thus the modern version of UKIRT is not 23 years old. Nor is 23 years particularly old compared to the ~400 years that telescopic observations have been made. If you read the fine print, you'll note that it took collaborative observations by 5 different telescopes to merely confirm that brown dwarfs vary in brightness (differently at different colors). While it might confirm they have weather, it certainly does not "determine what kind of weather patterns their atmospheres have." A confirmed observation of a brown dwarf was not made until 1995 (reference).

I didn't notice any mention of velocity data from the article, or what method was used to determine distance. This would be important in understanding the ring's history.

However, one could speculate that if these stars are indeed part of a ring, the ring may have formed through a collision with another galaxy. For an example, check this out. Here is another example of a ring galaxy.

I didn't notice any mention of velocity data from the article, or what method was used to determine distance. This would be important in understanding the ring's history.

However, one could speculate that if these stars are indeed part of a ring, the ring may have formed through a collision with another galaxy. For an example, check this out. Here is another example of a ring galaxy.

Then, throw in the concepts of Conservation of Angular Momentum and Gravity. The first tends to place explosive debris in the rotational plane of the exploding source, and the second tends to reinforce that by attracting additional matter.

This leads to the *density thing*. Viewing a (relatively) fairly dense region of space, say after a stellar explosion, the greatest density of the ejecta will end up in the rotational plane, making the explosion look circular. Just a guess though.

Actually, it is the output of 4 different ccds which take pictures of overlapping areas that are stitched togeather, often by hand for nicer pictures they put out. There was an article on the cameras and image processing (focusing on color but also covering this) in a recent sky&telescope, and there's also good information here: http://hubblesite.org/sci.d.tech/behind_the_pictur es/wacky_shape/index.shtml

Looking for more info on how Hubble images are colorized? Check this info page out.

The dark corner of many HST images is an artifact of the Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WFPC). Here's an illustrated explanation. The recent service mission replaced it with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which is bigger, more sensitive, and makes nice square images.

I've looked at several nebulas and galaxies through telescopes, and yes, they are all basically grey. I think there is value in enhancing even a visible-light image to highlight important structural details. For example, in the mostly green Hubble PR image of the Eagle Nebula, they assigned the orange hydrogen-alpha emission line to the green channel so it would be easier to distinguish from the red sulfur ion emission line. Since conventional images of this nebula are typically orange, I wondered what the color mapping was. I agree that they should generally do a better job of explaining it, but I don't mind that they did it. Through a telescope I can't see the nebula at all, only the star cluster.

This NASA story, Hubble's New Camera Delivers Breathtaking Views Of The Universe, has links to the photos. One of the linked sites, Hubblesite.org has stories such as Hubble's Advanced Camera Unveils a Panoramic New View of the Universe, which has thumbnail photos.

This NASA story, Hubble's New Camera Delivers Breathtaking Views Of The Universe, has links to the photos. One of the linked sites, Hubblesite.org has stories such as Hubble's Advanced Camera Unveils a Panoramic New View of the Universe, which has thumbnail photos.

-G

...which, oh joy, also features as a customized slashbox in your preferences!
Anyway, here's the link.