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Eta Carina [6000 x 2906] (imgsrc.hubblesite.org)

submitted ago by [deleted]

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[–]shafafa 9 points10 points ago

*Eta Carinae

[–]My-Work-Reddit 3 points4 points ago

That's a big image.

[–]disillusionment 1 point2 points ago

Down near the bottom of the page there is a hi-res image meant for wall mural printing.

[–]mutatron 2 points3 points ago

What the heck is going on in those black splotches? I mean, I know there's dust and all that, but I'm talking about the splotches that are black, and have sharp edges. Why do they have sharp edges?

Also, there are some other splotches that are not black inside, but have sharp edges accentuated by bright light, like that one guy right in the center left to right, but slightly above the middle up and down. What the heck is that thing? It reminds me of that negative energy being in the old Star Trek. Here it is, the space amoeba.

[–]pencer 5 points6 points ago

I guess they'd be considered bok globules.

[–]mutatron 1 point2 points ago

Ah, thanks! I've heard of those before, but it's been a while.

[–]serosis 2 points3 points ago

Now this is a picture of space!

[–]lmdrobvious 2 points3 points ago

Are pictures like this actual photos that represent what's visible to the naked eye? Or are they artist renditions/infra-red and microwave rays made visible?

[–]meighty9 5 points6 points ago

Not sure about this photo in particular, but many images we see coming from sources like Hubble are false color. They aren't artist interpretation but they aren't straight up photos either. They pick colors to associate with features that are only detected in the infrared, or UV, or really any non-visible wavelengths.

[–]killermojo 2 points3 points ago

The main reason I find this disappointing is because I like to imagine what it'd be like to fly around these places in a (very fast) spaceship with windows. I guess a lot of this wouldn't be visible with just our eyes, eh?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago

Well, if you look at some of the nearby nebulas with a small telescope you'll notice that they do have color to them but it's nowhere near as saturated as this. Flying near a dust cloud such as this would be a rather major visual disappointment if you've built up your expectations based on highlighted false color images.

[–]Lorem_Ipsum 0 points1 point ago

Be disappointed in human color vision, not the universe.

I am still holding out for the possibility of augmented color vision that lets us see into more of the spectrum. Humans can actually see into the ultraviolet a tiny bit, happens to some people if they have their lenses replaced with artificial ones that lack a UV coating. Although then you are exposing your retina to damaging ionizing radiation which is pretty bad.

[–]meighty9 1 point2 points ago

Again, I'm not sure on the source of this image. It might look very similar to this, but high-powered telescopes don't quite work like cameras; they only observe 1 wavelength at a time, and only observe a handful of wavelengths. Although many are capable of observing the entire visible spectrum, for scientific purposes that isn't very useful. This may be a visual approximate from a half-dozen bandwidths of visible light, or it might be complete false-color from infrared or radio emission.

edit: We (astronomers) generally don't try to lie to you. When we make false-color images, we do try to make it look like what it (we think) actually looks like.

[–]Astrokiwi 0 points1 point ago

Isn't that how normal digital cameras work though anyway? They take three simultaneous images with different broad-band filters, and composite them to simulate what you might actually see?

[–]meighty9 0 points1 point ago

Yes, a digital camera is very similar to a CCD (which is the detector in telescopes), but telescopes often deal with fewer bands spread out over a larger spectrum. The key difference is that false color images from telescopes are often exaggerated to accentuate details, or given colors that correspond to non-visible wavelengths. But you are correct, a CCD and a digital camera are very similar tech.

You should check out the Hubble Heritage Project. It's a group that takes raw data from the HST stored in a public archive and constructs many of the fabulous images that we see from it.

[–]ExecutiveChimp 2 points3 points ago

The false color image was created using the following formula: red for sulfur, green for hydrogen, and blue for oxygen emissions.

Source: wikipedia

[–]Astrokiwi 1 point2 points ago

I just want to clarify: generally the colours they use do correspond roughly to the actual colours of the spectral lines. For example, sulfur emits a whole bunch of lines of different colours (depending on how its ionised, how hot it is etc), and their filter has zeroed-in on one of these colours, and that colour is probably a red - though I can't say for sure unless I know exactly what sulfur line we're seeing and what wavelength it is.

Generally what you see in these pictures are real colours being emitted by the nebula, it's just that these colours are selected from existing colours, and then oversaturated. It's usually not just arbitrarily choosing a colour-scheme to make it pretty :)

[–]meighty9 2 points3 points ago

This is now my desktop background

[–]OraSerrata 0 points1 point ago

Exactly what I just did. I opened the image and was like "holy shit.." in sheer awe, then I immediately right-clicked it and set it as my background.

[–]uhmhi 0 points1 point ago

Simply stunning!

[–]axekill3r 0 points1 point ago

"Oh my god! It's full of stars"... Simply amazing.

[–]Spoonshape 0 points1 point ago

Suddenly I really want a Guinness.

[–]WASH_YOUR_VAGINA 0 points1 point ago

For those deep, existential thoughts: Guinness. I like the way you think!

[–]mynameistrain 0 points1 point ago

This is absolutely gorgeous.

[–]krzysd 1 point2 points ago

There is also one that is 29566x14321px. RIGHT CLICK AND SAVE. http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-2007-16-a-full_jpg.jpg

Also Hubbles album website http://www.hubblesite.org/gallery/album/

[–]For-The-Swarm 0 points1 point ago

Photoshoppers, wallpaper, STAT.

[–]disillusionment 0 points1 point ago

Hubblesite also has super hi-res images for mural printing! Here's the Carina Nebula.

[–]antiward 0 points1 point ago

thanks for introducing me to my new wallpaper

[–]mspong 0 points1 point ago

8000 light years away, due to go hypernova any day now.

[–]GuessWho_O 0 points1 point ago

thanks for the new background

edit: for some reason, setting it as my background made it lose quality in the picture. it appears lighter, any advice?

[–]maschnitz 0 points1 point ago

Phil Plait had a good article on Eta Carinae a few years ago. Tick tock.

[–]Spytap 0 points1 point ago

I read this as "Et Cetera" and had a brief moment pondering the immensity of the universe.

Then I realized that my early morning deep thoughts moment was simply a pre-coffee misreading of the title.