You've never stared this deep into space before

[Tsakali]

lol, still I bet it was cool as hell.

[Don Carlos]

No

[fKd]

classic photoshop lense flare abuse

still, that shit breaks my brain. drop in a bucket and all that.

[mrd]

Too bad this isn't in stereo so you could get a better sense of what is where.

lol wut?

At the distances involved, there'd be no depth separation or parallax in the image at all. The human eye can barely discern depth separation between mountains in the distance...only the haze tells the eye which mountain is further away...let alone galaxies billions of light years away. I doubt the parallax would change at all if you took the photo from both sides of the Earth's orbit around the Sun.

Well, I'm sure they could figure out a way to scale everything down so that some sense of depth could be perceived. Admittedly it might not be worth it... but I seem to recall seeing a photo like this that was done in stereo and it turned out OK. Either that or make some sort of model that could be rotated around so you could get a better idea of where everything is. Failing that, even some markers saying "this is xxx light years away, this is yyy light years away" would be cool. It's interesting to know that stuff. The way it is now, all that shit could be the same distance away and it wouldn't really look any different.

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

What's cool to think about is, if you could move at the right speed (away), had a high enough powered lens, you could watch the past unfold anywhere in the universe in real time. (I think)

[mrd]

Wouldn't that require traveling faster than light? Light from the past is "uncatchable", so to speak, so you'd never be able to observe it. I think at best you could be permanently locked into viewing the present state of an object.

[Tsakali]

but you can travel towards it, the faster you go, the faster your "fast forward" of its history will unfold, until you approach the present . would make for a cool video.

[andyman]

would make for a cool video.

that's all it really comes down to

[Tsakali]

so you see what I did there.

[losCHUNK]

cant marry a porno

[GONNAFISTYA]

Well, I'm sure they could figure out a way to scale everything down so that some sense of depth could be perceived. Admittedly it might not be worth it... but I seem to recall seeing a photo like this that was done in stereo and it turned out OK. Either that or make some sort of model that could be rotated around so you could get a better idea of where everything is. Failing that, even some markers saying "this is xxx light years away, this is yyy light years away" would be cool. It's interesting to know that stuff. The way it is now, all that shit could be the same distance away and it wouldn't really look any different.

I agree that more info about the distance differences would be cool, but having "just a bit" of parallax wouldn't be representative.

From what I've seen the best examples you can really give that make any sense is a profile view. The most common example of this is when planetarium geeks show the side view of the stars from the Big Dipper. You really have to pull yourself out of the normal observation to get a perspective and, in the end, all you end up with from a different perspective is a different constellation because people's brains are wired to do that.

Seriously...I think it best to just have it as a massively deep image of our universe and leave it at that. Sure you'd want a Legend of some sort, but why fuck with an awesome photo?

[YourGrandpa]

Klingons have reached the earth

http://bit.ly/V1gNjD

[Whiskey 7]

Klingons have reached the earth

http://bit.ly/V1gNjD

That's near too much.

When I saw mention of Klingons in this topic I was thinking more along this line where they shot up and destroyed Voyager

[YourGrandpa]

Bagel heads on National Geographic channel right now. LOL!

[Eraser]

Jesus Christ. GrandPa shows up and suddenly we're talking about Klingons.

[mrd]

I agree that more info about the distance differences would be cool, but having "just a bit" of parallax wouldn't be representative.

From what I've seen the best examples you can really give that make any sense is a profile view. The most common example of this is when planetarium geeks show the side view of the stars from the Big Dipper. You really have to pull yourself out of the normal observation to get a perspective and, in the end, all you end up with from a different perspective is a different constellation because people's brains are wired to do that.

Seriously...I think it best to just have it as a massively deep image of our universe and leave it at that. Sure you'd want a Legend of some sort, but why fuck with an awesome photo?

'Spose you're right. Wishful thinking on my part. I wonder, though, if they did do something like this from two opposite points of the Earth's orbit, would they be able to detect enough of a difference to make something of a model of it? I like to believe that NASA's tricks would be more effective than human eyes at detecting parallax. Also some information related to blue/red-shift would be cool. I like to know which galaxies will smash into ours at 9472 km/s in 73 billion years.

Never seen that shot of the stars from the big dipper though.

Agreed, it is a cool shot for sure. Now they need to make an interactive version where you can mouse-over every object and get a small blurb about it.

[Doombrain]

Redshift is used to calculate distance of ultra deep objects. i think a 3D version of the classic deep field was done but the effect ruins the colouration.

[mrd]

Redshift is used to calculate distance of ultra deep objects. i think a 3D version of the classic deep field was done but the effect ruins the colouration.

I'm pretty sure red/blue-shift is a change in light wavelength caused by objects moving away from or toward us, ya? IE: you measure the shift and you get a sense of how fast they are moving, based on how far the wavelength has shifted. Not sure if you could get the actual distance from that...

EDIT: Hmm, seems red-shift actually is related to distance. Anyone care to explain that? Is there more to it than the sheer speed of an object distorting the wavelength?

[Scarface]

i hope we find LV 426

nice nerd reference

[surgeon62]

We are all specs, living on a spec that orbits a spec, that is part of a cloud of specs that itself is also a spec relative to the universe.

[seremtan]

and some of those specs can't spel

[scared?]

I'm pretty sure red/blue-shift is a change in light wavelength caused by objects moving away from or toward us, ya? IE: you measure the shift and you get a sense of how fast they are moving, based on how far the wavelength has shifted. Not sure if you could get the actual distance from that...

EDIT: Hmm, seems red-shift actually is related to distance. Anyone care to explain that? Is there more to it than the sheer speed of an object distorting the wavelength?

lol dumb ppl...

[surgeon62]

and some of those specs can't spel

And years later....

I could've been abbreviating specification...

The statement is still true tho'

[xer0s]

Strong bump...

[Whiskey 7]

Now I finally get it.
I had to read the last entries a couple of times