Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Very Large Telescope Captures New 27-Megapixel Deep Field

Posted by Soulskill on from the awesome dept.

xyz writes "European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope has captured the deepest ground based U-band image of the universe yet. The image contains more than 27 million pixels and is the result of 55 hours of observations with the VIMOS instrument. 'Galaxies were detected that are a billion times fainter than the unaided eye can see and over a range of colours not directly observable by the eye. This deep image has been essential to the discovery of a large number of new galaxies that are so far away that they are seen as they were when the Universe was only 2 billion years old.'"

2 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. Context vs Hubble Deep Field by chanrobi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This new "picture" is taken in UV for which the Hubble ultra deep field is still the deepest image taken in visible wavelengths. Which provides, if you believe the current age estimate of the universe (13.73 ± 0.12 billion years old) means Hubble is still going back further. 0.73 Billion years vs 2 billion years since the beginning of the universe.

    Just to give a sense of perspective in case you read the title and went so what?

  2. How much area does this cover? by superid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yeah, I know..... a lot....

    What I mean is, if I look up in the sky, how big of a patch of the sky does this picture cover? The size of the full moon? Bigger? Smaller than a grain of sand at arms length?