150 Gigapixel Sky Image Contains 1 Billion Stars

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150 Gigapixel Sky Image Contains 1 Billion Stars

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday April 4, 2012 @03:15AM from the scientists-declare-universe-contains-lots-of-stuff dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "Astronomers have used two big telescopes to create an infrared survey of the Milky Way that is the largest of its kind: the resulting image has an incredible 150,000 megapixels containing over a billion stars. Something that large is difficult to use, so they also made a pan-and-zoom version online which should keep you occupied for quite some time. These data will be used to better understand star formation in our Milky Way, and how far more distant galaxies and quasars behave." The interactive image is powered by IIPImage which happens to be Free Software and is cool in its own right (right click the image to get help — it has a full set of keybindings for navigation).

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Oh my god by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 03:18 · Score: 5, Funny

It's full of stars!
1. Re:Oh my god by Joce640k · 2012-04-04 03:34 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Question is ... is it an American 'billion' or the same 'billion' as the rest of the world?
  
  --
  No sig today...
2. Re:Oh my god by boristhespider · 2012-04-04 03:41 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  People raise this kind of thing a lot when they want to be pedants but in reality "a billion" now is 10^9, regardless of where you are. The Americanisation of English could be viewed as sad - and often I think it is - but that's life.
3. Re:Oh my god by jellomizer · 2012-04-04 03:42 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Perhaps a silly question... Why do a lot of the stars when you zoom in you get a black dot in the middle...
  I mean if they were a planet. 1. so many of them shouldn't be almost directly in the middle. 2. Those planets would be HUGE (or a rogue planet eclipsing the star (still why then are all of them in the center) So that seems unlikely.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
4. Re:Oh my god by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 03:44 · Score: 1
  
  Interestingly, the word "billion" in french stands for 10^12 (10^9 is called a "milliard"). This tends to provoke all sorts of confusion for french students learning english (and, I imagine, the reverse as well).
5. Re:Oh my god by jcgam69 · 2012-04-04 03:47 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  The sensor is supersaturated due to the star's brightness.
6. Re:Oh my god by boristhespider · 2012-04-04 03:47 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  the word "billion" in british english means 10^12 to a lot of people too - hence the comment i replied to. before i went into science it meant 10^12 to me, as well, but spend long enough in science and you begin to see just how few people are aware of that - and it seems to get fewer each year.
7. Re:Oh my god by uigrad_2000 · 2012-04-04 03:53 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It's written in English, so it is most likely using the short-scale (American system, as you call it). The U.S. has always used the short scale system, and the U.K. (and almost all other English speaking countries) have used it since 1974.
  The long system is hardly used any place outside of Europe. So, this is one of the strange cases where the U.S. and the U.K. use the same system, and it's the system used by the majority of the world. In this case, it is France/Italy/Germany/Spain/Portugal/Netherlends that insist on using their own system.
  
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8. Re:Oh my god by Baloroth · 2012-04-04 03:56 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  If by "American" billion you mean "English" billion, than yes. Since Slashdot is an entirely English speaking site, it is most appropriate to use the English word for 10^9... which is billion.
  
  --
  "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
9. Re:Oh my god by rossdee · 2012-04-04 04:04 · Score: 1
  
  Giga is 10^9 pixels, so it would have to be an american billion.(10^9) - it would be a bit hard to get a British Billion (10^12) in that size of picture.
  (and be able to count them.)
  In the British system, 10^9 is called a Milliard, and I think 1,000 british Billions is called a Billiard. (I am not sure how much a snooker would be.
  A Williard is the amount of money that the former head of Bain Capital has invested in the Cayman Islands
  Anyway are there other objects in the image besides stars? (nebulas, galaxies, comets, planets ...
10. Re:Oh my god by UnknowingFool · 2012-04-04 04:05 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  [Carl Sagan voice]
  Milliards and milliards of stars.
  Doesn't have quite the same ring.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
11. Re:Oh my god by X0563511 · 2012-04-04 04:21 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It would be nice if people would stop being stupid and we could actually say 10^12 in a news article and not get slack-jawed stares. That would solve a lot of this silly ambiguity.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
12. Re:Oh my god by Urban+Nightmare · 2012-04-04 04:22 · Score: 1
  
  Thank you. I was almost ready to post the same question.
13. Re:Oh my god by omnichad · 2012-04-04 04:24 · Score: 1
  
  Anyway are there other objects in the image besides stars? (nebulas, galaxies, comets, planets ...
  Yes. Now wouldn't it be great if we could share links to a coordinate and zoom level? They kind of missed one big detail to make this useful.
14. Re:Oh my god by X0563511 · 2012-04-04 04:27 · Score: 1
  
  Either what jcgame69 said, or it's intentionally blacked out so that you can actually see the area around the star (otherwise it would be a big bright flare and you'd have no detail around it)
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
15. Re:Oh my god by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 04:29 · Score: 0
  
  How insignificant we are.
16. Re:Oh my god by boristhespider · 2012-04-04 04:31 · Score: 1
  
  Haha that would certainly be good. Until then we can all agree to use "a thousand millions" and "a million millions". The sheer irritation of typing all of that out - assuming that journalists won't add some key binding to automate it - will trigger a drive to ensure people know what 10^9 and 10^12 mean. Then we can slowly push them towards 10^{12}, which lets us type 10^121x without ambiguity. A few years down the road we could all be happily writing and reading LaTeX in news articles and do our bit against the dumbing-down of the internet...
17. Re:Oh my god by tlhIngan · 2012-04-04 04:38 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  the word "billion" in british english means 10^12 to a lot of people too - hence the comment i replied to. before i went into science it meant 10^12 to me, as well, but spend long enough in science and you begin to see just how few people are aware of that - and it seems to get fewer each year.
  Or a little thinking (not too much) can realize that a million-million makes no sense in this context.
  1-million-million is 1,000,000,000,000 (10^12).
  This image is 150,000-million, or 150,000,000,000.
  If 1 billion referred to was defined as million-million, it's easy to see that there would be more stars than pixels in the image by over 6 stars to 1 pixel.
  OTOH, using it as meaning 10^9, it means there's 1 star for ever 150 pixels, which seems to make MUCH more sense.
18. Re:Oh my god by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2012-04-04 04:39 · Score: 1
  
  Interestingly, the word "billion" in french stands for 10^12 (10^9 is called a "milliard"). This tends to provoke all sorts of confusion for french students learning english (and, I imagine, the reverse as well).
  The local TV quite often mistranslates "billion" when they talk about the US national debt. :) They make the US look really bad if you don't notice the absurdity of the mistranslated number, which most of the common folk don't. Should fire those guys and hire someone who actually knows English, anyway.
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
19. Re:Oh my god by mZHg · 2012-04-04 04:43 · Score: 1
  
  Or maybe use SI prefix: kilo, mega, giga, tera, peta, etc :)
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix
20. Re:Oh my god by Chakra5 · 2012-04-04 04:49 · Score: 1
  
  Yes. Now wouldn't it be great if we could share links to a coordinate and zoom level? They kind of missed one big detail to make this more useful.
  ftfy Let's give credit where it's due. That's quite a picture as is. I found it quite entertaining my self. Would be nice to have a share-able coordinate system though. perhaps you would put that together then?
  
  --
  Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.--Mark Twain
21. Re:Oh my god by jc42 · 2012-04-04 04:53 · Score: 2
  
  ... Then we can slowly push them towards 10^{12}, which lets us type 10^121x without ambiguity. A few years down the road we could all be happily writing and reading LaTeX in news articles and do our bit against the dumbing-down of the internet...
  Well, lotsa luck with that plan. I'd guess that, for the mass media, it'll always be understood that any number with more than 3 digits (or any non-digit chars) will baffle 90% of their readers. So the editors with rewrite them in words that aren't well defined, but don't scare the huge majority of their readers.
  Of course, this is /., so we can probably reduce that 90% to 80%. ;-)
  (And WTF does "quintillion" mean, anyway? What standards body defines such terms? No, dictionaries aren't standards bodies, and they don't all agree on such terms above "million". They don't even agree on which terms are defined, much less what they mean. ;-)
  
  --
  Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
22. Re:Oh my god by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 04:57 · Score: 0
  
  Add Sweden to that list, and probably a few more.
23. Re:Oh my god by jc42 · 2012-04-04 05:02 · Score: 2
  
  The local TV quite often mistranslates "billion" when they talk about the US national debt. :) ... Should fire those guys and hire someone who actually knows English, anyway.
  Except that English-language dictionaries don't agree on the meanings of any number words above "million". And there is no official standards body for the English language. Some other languages have such a body, notably French, but not English. And hiring people who pick one of a list of inconsistent definitions and declare it their "standard" is the process that led us to the morass that is the English-language "common speech".
  As others have pointed out, scientific/engineering/LaTeX notation is the only actual working solution. But most of the media's editors know that this will scare most of their readers, so they edit it into words that don't have precise meanings.
  
  --
  Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
24. Re:Oh my god by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 05:26 · Score: 0
  
  I would be impressed if they managed to fit 10^12 stars in 1.5 * 10^11 pixels...
25. Re:Oh my god by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 05:30 · Score: 0
  
  You forgot Poland!
26. Re:Oh my god by boristhespider · 2012-04-04 05:34 · Score: 1
  
  There is this, as well, but it involves taking the extra few seconds or so to estimate whether the number seems reasonable. Though I have to say that the controversy makes me wonder if there are millions of people in Britain who think that their national debt (£900bn or thereabouts) is a thousand times worse than it is, given that the British media - universally, so far as I've noticed - describe such large debts in "billions" (10^9) and "trillions" (10^12).
27. Re:Oh my god by boristhespider · 2012-04-04 05:35 · Score: 2
  
  Yeah but then you get people playing games like using megaseconds to measure a year. (A year is very approximately 30*pi megaseconds, if you don't mind shitty approximations.)
28. Re:Oh my god by boristhespider · 2012-04-04 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  I've always thought "quintillion" was a number people use when they can't understand how big a number is. Or "quadrillion", which I'd guess originally meant 10^24 or something like that. Maybe "quintillion" was 10^30.
29. Re:Oh my god by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 05:53 · Score: 0
  
  That's because he didn't, and I'm quoting from the article here, "embiggen" it.
30. Re:Oh my god by networkBoy · 2012-04-04 06:29 · Score: 1
  
  I go with metric shitton when it's a mind bogglingly big number, and long(or imperial) shitton when it's a little bigger than that.
  -nB
  
  --
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31. Re:Oh my god by aiken_d · 2012-04-04 06:42 · Score: 0
  
  ...and it's just inconvenient, not having a word for 10^9. "Six hundred fifty three thousand million" is incredibly awkward to parse. At least, for an American.
  
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  If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
32. Re:Oh my god by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 06:54 · Score: 0
  
  ... fortunately us non-Americans have the word "milliard" for this occasion.
33. Re:Oh my god by expatriot · 2012-04-04 07:37 · Score: 1
  
  http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/how-many-is-a-billion
  In British English, a billion used to be equivalent to a million million (i.e. 1,000,000,000,000), while in American English it has always equated to a thousand million (i.e. 1,000,000,000). British English has now adopted the American figure, though, so that a billion equals a thousand million in both varieties of English.
  The same sort of change has taken place with the meaning of trillion. In British English, a trillion used to mean a million million million (i.e. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000). Nowadays, it's generally held to be equivalent to a million million (1,000,000,000,000), as it is in American English.
34. Re:Oh my god by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 09:18 · Score: 0
  
  Though I have to say that the controversy makes me wonder if there are millions of people in Britain who think that their national debt (£900bn or thereabouts) is a thousand times worse than it is,
  I would be quite surprised if there are millions of people in Britain that are aware of their national debt, at all.
35. Re:Oh my god by fatphil · 2012-04-04 09:55 · Score: 1
  
  Your use of the definite article implies that the word milliard doesn't exist. Which is news to me.
  
  --
  Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
36. Re:Oh my god by Black+Parrot · 2012-04-04 15:19 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah but then you get people playing games like using megaseconds to measure a year.
  I have some medicine whose dosage is "1000 mg".
  
  (A year is very approximately 30*pi megaseconds, if you don't mind shitty approximations.)
  Ah, I always wondered why people say "year round".
  
  --
  Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
37. Re:Oh my god by Black+Parrot · 2012-04-04 15:20 · Score: 1
  
  I've always thought "quintillion" was a number people use when they can't understand how big a number is.
  No, that's "gazillion".
  
  --
  Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
38. Re:Oh my god by Black+Parrot · 2012-04-04 15:22 · Score: 1
  
  In British English, a billion used to be equivalent to a million million (i.e. 1,000,000,000,000), while in American English it has always equated to a thousand million (i.e. 1,000,000,000). British English has now adopted the American figure, though, so that a billion equals a thousand million in both varieties of English.
  I bet their billionaires didn't appreciate the downgrade.
  
  --
  Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
39. Re:Oh my god by datavirtue · 2012-04-04 15:31 · Score: 1
  
  I think we're all forgetting yocto.
  
  --
  I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
40. Re:Oh my god by hawk · 2012-04-04 16:46 · Score: 1
  
  This OS the difference between 150 pixels/star and .15 pixels/star (or, 7 stats/pixel . . .)
  hawk
41. Re:Oh my god by HeadlessNotAHorseman · 2012-04-04 17:00 · Score: 1
  
  "1000 mg" makes sense if the number of significant digits is important (which it would be in medicinal dosages). Alternatively they could write it as 1.000 g, but 1000mg is easier to read and compare with smaller doses, such as 500mg.
  
  --
  I like my coffee the way I like my women - roasted and ground up into little tiny pieces.
42. Re:Oh my god by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 17:49 · Score: 0
  
  A year is 31,557,600 seconds (86,400 seconds per day x 365.25 days), that'd be approx. 31.6 megaseconds. Divided by pi, that's roughly 10 megaseconds.
43. Re:Oh my god by boristhespider · 2012-04-04 21:35 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, I don't know why I wrote 30 pi instead of 10 pi. Idiocy, most likely.
44. Re:Oh my god by boristhespider · 2012-04-04 23:26 · Score: 1
  
  alas, poor yocto. i knew him, horatio.
45. Re:Oh my god by einyen · 2012-04-05 04:21 · Score: 1
  
  Since this is an "infrared survey of the Milky Way" it must be 10^9 stars since there is not 10^12 stars in The Milky Way. I think it's about 10^11 to 2*10^11 stars in the Milky Way?
46. Re:Oh my god by boristhespider · 2012-04-05 05:00 · Score: 1
  
  I stand corrected, you're quite right.
47. Re:Oh my god by Man+Eating+Duck · 2012-04-05 07:03 · Score: 1
  
  The long system is hardly used any place outside of Europe. So, this is one of the strange cases where the U.S. and the U.K. use the same system, and it's the system used by the majority of the world. In this case, it is France/Italy/Germany/Spain/Portugal/Netherlends that insist on using their own system.
  In Norway, 10^9 is kalled a "milliard", 10^12 is a billion, and 10^18 is a trillion. While "milliard" is in common use, to avoid confusion most people use "1000 milliards" in place of billion. Trillion is strangely enough common, even though the danger of confusion is just as bad as with billion. I've also seen 10^x used regularly even in normal newspaper articles.
  
  --
  Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors! :)
48. Re:Oh my god by Joce640k · 2012-04-05 08:32 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah but then you get people playing games like using megaseconds to measure a year. (A year is very approximately 30*pi megaseconds, if you don't mind shitty approximations.)
  And pi seconds is one nanocentury...
  
  --
  No sig today...
49. Re:Oh my god by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-05 10:02 · Score: 0
  
  Makes you wonder if there is intelligent life out there hey. How could there not be?
50. Re:Oh my god by DedTV · 2012-04-05 21:38 · Score: 1
  
  I hear there's a really good restaurant out there. Right at the end.
That's Big! by Hatta · 2012-04-04 03:20 · Score: 3, Interesting

Assuming 8 bits per pixel, a 150,000,000,000 pixel image would be 419GB.

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
1. Re:That's Big! by na1led · 2012-04-04 03:25 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sure they use some compression to bring the size down a bit.
  
  --
  -- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
2. Re:That's Big! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 03:26 · Score: 0
  
  That would take quite a while to upload to facebook
3. Re:That's Big! by Hatta · 2012-04-04 03:30 · Score: 1
  
  Well sure, but I didn't want to hazard a guess as to the compression ratio they got.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
4. Re:That's Big! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 03:30 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Assuming 8 bits per pixel, a 150,000,000,000 pixel image would be 419GB.
  Your new computer math is intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
5. Re:That's Big! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 03:33 · Score: 1
  
  And you thought the walk down the street to the chemists was big.
6. Re:That's Big! by MikeyC01 · 2012-04-04 03:35 · Score: 2
  
  What's an extra 16 bits per pixel between friends?
7. Re:That's Big! by SureshotM6 · 2012-04-04 03:44 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  The source is a 91.6GB TIFF file. The filename on the server is in some of the CGI requests.
  
  -> curl -I http://djer.roe.ac.uk/vsa/vvv/v5.tif
  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:42:27 GMT
  Server: Apache/2.2.21 (Debian)
  Last-Modified: Sat, 24 Mar 2012 16:13:29 GMT
  ETag: "f61e88-16e808414a-4bbff6bf3ed80"
  Accept-Ranges: bytes
  Content-Type: image/tiff
  Content-Length: 98382135626
  Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive
  Connection: Keep-Alive
8. Re:That's Big! by mikael · 2012-04-04 03:57 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Raw CCD sensor data is usually more than 8 bits per channel (or colour filter). 16 bits per pixel is used for professional cameras, but those sensors use Bayer format for red, green and blue. Telescopes just place different colour filters over the entire sensor and correct for different levels of sensitivity.
  
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9. Re:That's Big! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 03:58 · Score: 1
  
  The dark matter compresses extremely well...
10. Re:That's Big! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 04:10 · Score: 0
  
  Can anyone download and resave this to something more reasonable. The only >TIF available otherwise is 190 some odd megs and isn't very good for zooming in. I was thinking maybe around a few gigs. I asked the people hosting it about this and never got a response.
  I just want something decent for offline use.
11. Re:That's Big! by X0563511 · 2012-04-04 04:29 · Score: 1
  
  Erm, would this even be a visible light camera? It would make more sense to me if this was some other spectra and is just false color.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
12. Re:That's Big! by digitalaudiorock · 2012-04-04 04:53 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Who else is somehow expecting to get that thing in a email from one of your less tech-savvy relatives...
13. Re:That's Big! by hvm2hvm · 2012-04-04 05:16 · Score: 1
  
  The summary says it's an infrared survey of the sky. So I'm guessing 16bit with an infrared filter (and obviously an infrared sensitive CCD).
  
  --
  ics
14. Re:That's Big! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 06:27 · Score: 0
  
  I have no idea how you did this calculation. At firstI thought you confused bits with bytes. Then I thought maybe you meant 8 bits per channel. Then I just came to the conclusion that you made it up.
15. Re:That's Big! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 06:42 · Score: 0
  
  Ah yes, you did mean 8 bits per channel. Makes more sense now.
16. Re:That's Big! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 10:53 · Score: 0
  
  Damnit they removed the file! Did anyone happen to grab it?
17. Re:That's Big! by mikael · 2012-04-04 23:21 · Score: 1
  
  Just about every CCD is infra-red sensitive. That's due to the use of silicon and other elements. Even a mobile phone can create nfra-red pictures if you place a suitable filter in front of the lens (eg. Hoya H72).
  Of course, an astronomical telescope is going to have the sensor chilled down to well below 0C .
  
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Just Flippin Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 03:20 · Score: 0

love it
Where can I download this? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 03:21 · Score: 1

It would make such a great wallpaper for my 250ft monitor.
1. Re:Where can I download this? by networkBoy · 2012-04-04 03:38 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Was just looking at that and thinking...
  How much would it cost to get a photo quality print made that is 9 feet tall and long enough to wrap around my entire den at my house? That would be the best ever wallpaper.
  
  --
  whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
2. Re:Where can I download this? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 06:40 · Score: 0
  
  Cost is no object when you're aiming to impress the ladies, my friend.
3D version? by cavok · 2012-04-04 03:27 · Score: 3, Funny

Why this is not in 3D yet?!?
1. Re:3D version? by JTsyo · 2012-04-04 03:34 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Would you even be able to tell the difference between things lightyears away without having your two points of view much further apart that 2 sides of Earth orbit?
2. Re:3D version? by Baloroth · 2012-04-04 03:47 · Score: 2
  
  Walk outside at night. Tada! the entire universe in 3D (ok, a little less than half of it, but still).
  
  --
  "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
3. Re:3D version? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 03:52 · Score: 0
  
  Look out of the window - the 3D version is projected in the sky every night .
4. Re:3D version? by Xiterion · 2012-04-04 03:55 · Score: 1
  
  There are other ways to get depth information, especially in studies like this. Various techniques such as those mentioned here can be used to fill in at least some of the missing data. Then you can provide the viewer with virtual points of view that are many light years apart to allow perceiving the galaxy in stereo. And to answer GP's question, probably because there's an immense pile of other data to sort through to get that depth information. Sadly, we don't yet have the equivalent of Kinect to give us depth maps along with the image.
5. Re:3D version? by cavok · 2012-04-04 03:58 · Score: 1
  
  ah.. do you mean it's already 3D but we cannot see the actual difference? :D
6. Re:3D version? by boristhespider · 2012-04-04 05:44 · Score: 1
  
  That only works if you live in the middle of the desert on top of a big hill and your house is a big dome with very clean windows. Otherwise there's all these buildings, clouds, lights and bird shit getting in the way.
7. Re:3D version? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 05:50 · Score: 0
  
  they're waiting for the 3rd release... Stars 3D!
Ahh peanuts. by tom17 · 2012-04-04 03:28 · Score: 1

Peanuts to that. I think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's.
Daytime? by Anne_Nonymous · 2012-04-04 03:32 · Score: 5, Funny

Now if we could just get a 150,000 megapixel image of the daytime sky, we wouldn't have to go outside at all.
1. Re:Daytime? by Black+Parrot · 2012-04-04 15:33 · Score: 1
  
  Now if we could just get a 150,000 megapixel image of the daytime sky, we wouldn't have to go outside at all.
  You go outside? In the daytime???
  
  --
  Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:Puny humans by aristotle-dude · 2012-04-04 03:33 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Tell me again about your "personal relationship" with the being that created all of that?
Sorry but what does size of the universe have to do with that? You seem to have a lack of self esteem. Again, I'm not trying to force you to change your beliefs but I have to question the logic of your statement. One could argue that the size of the universe displays the awesome and limitless power of the almighty and the ability of the almighty to notice individuals within the scope of that creation. To me, that is awe inspiring.

--
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
1 in 150 pixels is a star! by crow · 2012-04-04 03:34 · Score: 2

What I find most surprising is that they report over a billion stars with an image containing 150 billion pixels. That's a much higher density that I would have expected.
I guess that my intuition in such things isn't very good, which, not being an astronomer, isn't surprising.
1. Re:1 in 150 pixels is a star! by boristhespider · 2012-04-04 03:43 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  If you read up on Olber's paradox you'll find it's even actually a significantly lower density than you might expect...
2. Re:1 in 150 pixels is a star! by s0litaire · 2012-04-04 03:52 · Score: 1
  
  it's probably more like 200 Billion stars in 150 Billion pixels (It's just the light's not reached us yet...)
  
  --
  Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
3. Re:1 in 150 pixels is a star! by X0563511 · 2012-04-04 04:38 · Score: 1
  
  ... or are suitably dim compared to the stars we DO see on it, that they are not detected. The universe has quite a large dynamic range.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
4. Re:1 in 150 pixels is a star! by Black+Parrot · 2012-04-04 15:34 · Score: 1
  
  Some of those "stars" are probably binaries.
  
  --
  Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
5. Re:1 in 150 pixels is a star! by Threni · 2012-04-05 00:07 · Score: 1
  
  I hope they've got a decent virus checker.
And that's only this galaxy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 03:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

There are likely as many galaxies in the observable universe as there are stars in this galaxy.
Doughnut Stars by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 03:50 · Score: 1, Interesting

Why do some of the stars look like they've got holes in them?
http://djer.roe.ac.uk/fcgi-bin/iipsrv.fcgi?FIF=/data/vsa/vvv/v5.tif&CNT=1&SDS=0,90&JTL=11,86696
1. Re:Doughnut Stars by oodaloop · 2012-04-04 03:56 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  A large massive object, like your mom, placed in front of the star can act like a gravitational lens.
  
  --
  Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
2. Re:Doughnut Stars by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 04:46 · Score: 0
  
  http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2765711&cid=39572303
  "The sensor is supersaturated due to the star's brightness."
3. Re:Doughnut Stars by GodfatherofSoul · 2012-04-04 04:51 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  The sensor is supersaturated due to the star's brightness.
  [If this works, I'm going to become a karma whoring god]
  
  --
  I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
4. Re:Doughnut Stars by Kozar_The_Malignant · 2012-04-04 07:15 · Score: 1
  
  This post is my way of resisting the temptation to mod you -1 Troll. It will also keep you from being arrested in Arizona. You should thank me.
  
  --
  Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
5. Re:Doughnut Stars by Black+Parrot · 2012-04-04 15:35 · Score: 1
  
  Why do some of the stars look like they've got holes in them?
  Redactions.
  
  --
  Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
6. Re:Doughnut Stars by datavirtue · 2012-04-04 15:43 · Score: 1
  
  It is called the cosmic dirt spider. Don't stare at it too long or it will lose its specialness.
  
  --
  I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Black dot in the center of stars? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 04:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

Does anyone know why almost all stars (it can be seen easier in big ones) have a black dot in the middle?
1. Re:Black dot in the center of stars? by omnichad · 2012-04-04 04:29 · Score: 1
  
  too bright. For some reason, super-white is rendered as black.
2. Re:Black dot in the center of stars? by simcop2387 · 2012-04-04 05:15 · Score: 1
  
  This is pretty typical of CMOS sensors, you can see it happen on a digital camera if you try hard enough (usually need a laser).
Re:Puny humans by mikael · 2012-04-04 04:07 · Score: 0

We used to have these sort of philosophical debates in RE and Biology.
RE: Maybe God is the sum of all conscious / sentient thought in the universe. Everything else just obeys the laws of physics and can juat be left alone to tick along like clockwork.
Biology: How do we know something is "alive"? At the time, we used definitions like being able to reproduce, consume food and die. Then the answer was, it contained DNA, genes and enzymes that could interact.

--
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Re:Puny humans by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 04:12 · Score: 0

God != Universe. He created it, but is not it. Your example fails.
missing one important feature by jcgam69 · 2012-04-04 04:15 · Score: 1

Awesome images and a great app, but it could be improved by allowing users to mark interesting features. The data set is too big for researchers to visually scan it all.
Re:Puny humans by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 04:18 · Score: 0

He, the male god, also cares so much He created cancer. Hope you're lucky and don't get it.
Re:Puny humans by BobZee1 · 2012-04-04 04:24 · Score: 1

oops. mod me off-topic. posting to remove error mod.

--
dumber people are doing harder things everyday
Re:Puny humans by BobZee1 · 2012-04-04 04:26 · Score: 0

it is so sad to me that you need that sort of crutch. i feel sorry for you.

--
dumber people are doing harder things everyday
Re:Puny humans by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · 2012-04-04 04:28 · Score: 0

My example was to invoke scale, not some kind of one-for-one correspondance. Your literalism fails.
Little sister by mZHg · 2012-04-04 04:31 · Score: 1

This remind me a older one, 'only' 5 Gpixel: http://skysurvey.org/
Also with a Online viewer :)
Re:Puny humans by X0563511 · 2012-04-04 04:33 · Score: 1

Clearly those stars are not all out there. There's just a big shell around us with holes poked through!
(... that was a joke, by the way)

--
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
A sense of scale by adenied · 2012-04-04 05:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

A billion stars seems like a lot but general consensus is that the Milky Way alone has 300 +/- 100 billion stars. So at best this is like 0.5% of the galaxy. I just read about the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey looking at 300,000 galaxies and planning on hitting 1,000,000 eventually. The number of stars out there is truly mind blowing for us puny humans. It's really impressive if you stop to think about it.
1. Re:A sense of scale by Anonymous Coward · 2012-04-04 23:04 · Score: 0
  
  All the stars in all the gallaxies combined (observable universe) is still less than 1 Mole. So I think it's still a managable number.
coral cache of page/pics by sl4shd0rk · 2012-04-04 05:21 · Score: 1

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com.nyud.net/badastronomy/2012/04/04/to-grasp-a-billion-stars/
http://djer.roe.ac.uk.nyud.net/vsa/vvv/vvv_gps_2.jpg
http://djer.roe.ac.uk.nyud.net/vsa/vvv/subimages/b305_0.jpg
http://djer.roe.ac.uk.nyud.net/vsa/vvv/subimages/b305_3_box.jpg
http://djer.roe.ac.uk.nyud.net/vsa/vvv/subimages/b305_5_box.jpg

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It's missing something... by jamiesan · 2012-04-04 06:50 · Score: 1

Where is the arrow pointing to a star that says "You are here"?
1. Re:It's missing something... by Matt_Bennett · 2012-04-05 05:59 · Score: 1
  
  You can't see it because it is pointing straight at you, no matter what direction you look.
How many? by PeterAitch · 2012-04-04 06:59 · Score: 1

A billion? - I kept counting forty-two. Then again, since it's not the whole Universe, maybe it was a only a subset like, say, two? Seriously, though, very impressive. As Adams understated, "Space is Big". Yep...
Re:Puny humans by Black+Parrot · 2012-04-04 15:31 · Score: 1

Tell me again about your "personal relationship" with the being that created all of that?
Sorry but what does size of the universe have to do with that? You seem to have a lack of self esteem
Hey, our species created the being that "created" all of that. We should have esteem++.
Unless we're not delusional.

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
holes? by chrismcb · 2012-04-04 16:27 · Score: 1

Why are there so many holes in the image?
Re:Puny humans by aristotle-dude · 2012-04-06 02:37 · Score: 1

Tell me again about your "personal relationship" with the being that created all of that?
Sorry but what does size of the universe have to do with that? You seem to have a lack of self esteem
Hey, our species created the being that "created" all of that. We should have esteem++.
Unless we're not delusional.
I find your circular logic amusing. Is this what you tell yourself to sleep at night? Does it keep your conscience at bay? Have you ever wondered why you are wired with a conscience that seems to war against your base desires?

--
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Re:Puny humans by slacktivist · 2012-04-07 02:02 · Score: 0

Do I REALLY need to explain the meaning behind what I said? Of course I would, but you dipshit mods likely wouldn't understand anyway. Off-topic my ass.