New Gigapixel image of Andromeda (from NASA)

[senseamp]

What CAD tool did God use to intelligently design that thing?
Do you think he maybe just ran a Monte-Carlo simulation and let things randomly design themselves?

 

[Albatross]

We crash in about 4 billion.

You scared me I thought you wrote 4 MILLION years.

 

[TechBoyJK]

You scared me I thought you wrote 4 MILLION years.

By that time Andromeda might be brighter in the sky than our Moon, yet much more fixed in it's position due to it's distance.

It'd be a crazy 3rd object to have in our sky.

Imagine a Lunar eclipse of Andromeda at night...

 

[phucheneh]

Has to be bullshit. Its too big. Can't be that big.

Fucking JJ Abrams telescope and its goddamn lens flares.

 

[Brian Stirling]

What CAD tool did God use to intelligently design that thing?
Do you think he maybe just ran a Monte-Carlo simulation and let things randomly design themselves?

Einstein once said that God does not throw dice. But, he was wrong!


Brian

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Einstein once said that God does not throw dice. But, he was wrong!


Brian

Apparently the clumsy oaf threw them into the craft supplies and sent glitter flying EVERYWHERE.

 

[Ichinisan]

There's a parallax effect in the video. Was that intentional? Or was it an artifact of the encoding?

 

[destrekor]

There's a parallax effect in the video. Was that intentional? Or was it an artifact of the encoding?

I think encoding. Panning a frame filled to the brim with stars, and doing so at just shy of 30fps, that won't look all that great.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I wonder how many families, homes, and personal stories were scanned over during that sweeping move over all those stars.
My message to all those in Andromeda who are wondering if they are alone, I am here and I saw where you live.

Of course, what you're seeing is also approximately 2.5 million years old so many of the things alive when that light left Andromeda are long dead. Modern humans were still around 2.3 million years from appearing when that light left Andromeda.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

In a few million years, iirc, andromeda and the milky way will be much closer. Close enough that Andromeda will be as big in the sky as the moon. IIRC

I think I read somewhere that even at this distance, Andromeda is actually about 6 moons wide in the sky but is too dim to see all of it. I honestly find that hard to believe. It is just so colossal.

 

[phucheneh]

I think I read somewhere that even at this distance, Andromeda is actually about 6 moons wide in the sky but is too dim to see all of it. I honestly find that hard to believe. It is just so colossal.

The whole of Andromeda is bigger than the moon, but the part that is visible with the naked eye (or even a small telescope or binos) is fairly small.

Re: colossal...yeah. But also 23,651,321,000,000,000,000 kilometers away.

 

[bradly1101]

I just wish Hubble took color images. They spend a lot of time coloizing those images in the most dramatic ways possible. On an image like this you can really see the 'paint'.

http://hubblesite.org/reference_desk/faq/answer.php.id=93&cat=topten

 

[Aharami]

simply amazing!

 

[IndyColtsFan]

The whole of Andromeda is bigger than the moon, but the part that is visible with the naked eye (or even a small telescope or binos) is fairly small.

Re: colossal...yeah. But also 23,651,321,000,000,000,000 kilometers away.

You can only really see the galactic core region with the eye or small set of binoculars. Still pretty awesome to realize that you're looking at the most distant object visible with the naked eye -- by far.

 

[Jeff7]

I just wish Hubble took color images. They spend a lot of time coloizing those images in the most dramatic ways possible. On an image like this you can really see the 'paint'.

http://hubblesite.org/reference_desk/faq/answer.php.id=93&cat=topten

It looks like they don't "colorize" them any more than the Mars Exploration Rover team does, and they can produce normal color images.

The MERs use B&W cameras too, but in front of each Pancam is a filter wheel. If they want a basic color image, they get three photos, one of each through a red, green, and blue filter. They're then calibrated and combined to get a good color image.

But human vision is pretty pathetic though when it comes to versatility in the EM spectrum, so the scientific community will use other wavelengths when possible. Here's a nice PDF on the MER cameras. Page 9 shows the filter wheels. There are some there in the visible range, and also a lot of infrared filters.
Having separate channels also makes it possible to "stretch" colors for enhanced visibility.
Combination of filters, including some near-IR.
Stretched colors.

Then if you get into the longer-wavelength IR filters, additional details can start to show up which don't show up in visible wavelengths.

Many full-color Hubble images are combinations of three separate exposures — one each taken in red, green, and blue light. When mixed together, these three colors of light can simulate almost any color of light that is visible to human eyes. That’s how televisions, computer monitors, and video cameras recreate colors.

So it's not much different than the fake colors you're seeing on your monitor. Your monitor isn't capable of showing you anything other than red, green, and blue light, but I'm sure you can see yellow and white sections on it right now.

A proper RGB color image.

Approximate natural-color image? The colors on this one.....IR for red, orange for green, and blue for blue. Stretchy. It's possible it was calibrated to get it to look close to how it'd really look to a person.

Better approximation. 390nm blue, 475nm green, 600nm red.

Approximate true-color image. "The new image of V838 Mon, taken in October 2004 with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, was prepared from images obtained through filters that isolate blue, green, and infrared light. These images have been combined to produce a full-color picture that approximates the true colors of the light echo and the very red star near the center."
So again, it's not the normal human-eye red/green/blue filters, but they can do quite a bit with what they have to tease out some reasonable colors.
Either way, it's not like they're colorizing them with MS Paint and an airbrush.




The fancy colors you get in some images are because they're not spending money to take pretty pictures for backgrounds on phones and PCs, but because they're spending money to get pictures that emphasize scientific value. That sometimes means leaving behind the limitations of our eyes. In some ways, Hubble has better vision than any human.
"The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 aboard the Hubble Space Telescope has 12 filter wheels, each of which holds four filters."

Our eyes only have three filters.


Here we go, this PDF shows the color options available. (Page 9)
And anyone thought that the mantis shrimp's 12-cone vision was impressive?




As for the Andromeda image...

This view shows the galaxy in its natural visible-light color, as photographed with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys in red and blue filters July 2010 through October 2013.

Looks like they didn't use the green filter.
They can do some impressive interpolation to try to fill in the gaps though. (Just like your eyes can tell you that red+green = yellow. )

 

[TechBoyJK]

I think I read somewhere that even at this distance, Andromeda is actually about 6 moons wide in the sky but is too dim to see all of it. I honestly find that hard to believe. It is just so colossal.

IIRC, this is how it would look now if it were bright enough

Once it's bright enough that the center 5% is as bright as the moon, it will be much larger in the sky.

 

[Pocatello]

It may be amazing now, wait until a few billions years. It will be so bright in the sky, more than a full moon, we won't even be able to see our own Milky Way, and only the brightest stars. It will be a bane to future astro-photographers.