Favorite Astronomy Pictures.

[oxmixmudd]

A little better.



You can find the catalog of all the images from Voyager, New Horizons, Galileo, and Cassini here

nice. Love the effect of the moon's gravity on the rings.


Jim

[Sea of red]

Whirlpool Galaxy

[Sea of red]

This one is an irregular galaxy.

No common name - NGC1427A

[oxmixmudd]

Crab nebula pulsar time lapse: hubble and chandra:

Jim

[Duragizer]

Whoa! That's clearly the image of a pouncing squirrel! What does it mean??

Squirrels are the descendants of Martian refugees who fled to Earth after Galactus consumed their homeworld?

[robrecht]

Any emission nebula is bound to be beautiful. The ionized gases emit some of the most beautiful color patterns in the universe. ...

I read somewhere that some (most?, all?) of these stunning astronomical color photographs are colorized. The various colors may correspond to specific wavelengths of radiation but they would not appear with these colors to the naked eye. Any truth to that?

[rogue06]

Whoa! That's clearly the image of a pouncing squirrel! What does it mean??

Obviously not a squirrel. I mean...

0000000000000ms.jpg
Actual picture taken by the Mars rover Curiosity

Er, um, come on you cannot possibly think that is an actual squirrel. I mean it... must be...

Squirrel.jpg

facepalm3.gif %$#&@# it Dave. You're really making plausible deniability hard here.

[Sea of red]

I read somewhere that some (most?, all?) of these stunning astronomical color photographs are colorized. The various colors may correspond to specific wavelengths of radiation but they would not appear with these colors to the naked eye. Any truth to that?

There are indeed different techniques and telescopes used for taking different images - depending on what's called for. There are radio- wave telescopes, infrared telescopes, x-ray telescopes, ultraviolet wave telescopes, and telescopes that capture visible-light - which are the images I've posted thus far. Since our atmosphere is opaque, x-ray and infrared telescopes are placed in orbit to enable the telescope to capture those wavelengths.

Visible-light like what you saw are done on long time exposures to absorb as much light as possible, and are sometimes then focus stacked for better clarity.

[Sea of red]

An example of Orion Nebula M42 at the visible and infrared spectrum.

[Faber]

I read somewhere that some (most?, all?) of these stunning astronomical color photographs are colorized. The various colors may correspond to specific wavelengths of radiation but they would not appear with these colors to the naked eye. Any truth to that?

I remember when the local Edmund Scientific in Barrington NJ (now Edmund Optics?) used to caution people when buying telescopes, not to expect to see the same thing they see in all those astronomy pictures. Unlike all those catalog stores that show impressive photos to get people to buy telescopes. I knew somebody who bought a 4" reflector, but couldn't see anything through it. It would help if they had taken the cover off first.

[robrecht]

I remember when the local Edmund Scientific in Barrington NJ (now Edmund Optics?) used to caution people when buying telescopes, not to expect to see the same thing they see in all those astronomy pictures. Unlike all those catalog stores that show impressive photos to get people to buy telescopes. I knew somebody who bought a 4" reflector, but couldn't see anything through it. It would help if they had taken the cover off first.

I've had a few telescopes since I was a kid and bought a nice one for my kids. Unless you're willing to lay down some seriously big bucks, and even if you are, you will always have to manage expectations.

[Sea of red]

Most amateur telescopes have mirrors that are too small to absorb light from deep sky bodies.

Saturn will look something like this in a 4-inch reflector.



Andromeda will look like this in a 6-inch reflector.

[Sea of red]

Ring Nebula

[Jedidiah]

When I was in college there was a 12" reflector which through a friend I had access to. Truly awesome what we could see.

[Cow Poke]

When I was in college there was a 12" reflector which through a friend I had access to. Truly awesome what we could see.

We had a "nutty professor" in our neighborhood - a kid named Garth who was totally into science, and had a really neat telescope he would set up in the park for us. I don't remember much about it, except it was absolutely fascinating to see stuff "that far away".

I remember he had it set up for the Apollo Moon Landing in '69. I think us kids were expecting to see men walking around on the moon through that telescope. It was pretty amazing, though, seeing the moon up close through that scope and realizing there really were people up there!

It seems to me that he had it set up for one of the (solar?) eclipses, and when we went running up to ask if we could look through the telescope, he pointed to a white poster board at the rear of the scope and said, "just look right there".