Hubble Favorites
A National Air and Space Museum astronomer picks some of his favorite images from the storied telescope.
- By Rebecca Maksel
- AirSpaceMag.com, May 22, 2009
NASA, J. English (U. Manitoba), S. Hunsberger, S. Zonak, J. Charlton, S. Gallagher (PSU), and L. Frattare (STScl)
Seyfert’s Sextet (2000)
“This cluster of galaxies in Serpens, imaged by the WF/PC2 [Wide Field/Planetary Camera], was first described by Carl Seyfert in the 1940s,” write DeVorkin and Smith. “The face-on spiral is a more distant galaxy coincidentally superimposed. It is not engaged in the slow, multibillion-year dance of the others.”
“I chose this image because it just tells you so much,” says DeVorkin. “If you look back into the early universe you’ll find more and more of these little beasties. In a few more billion years, the closest big galaxy to us—the Andromeda—and the Milky Way will be together. Oh, yeah, they’re rushing toward each other as we speak. The velocities are huge, but the distances are huge.
The technical processes that the astronomers used to produce these images are really not that different from all of the technical processes that were used by printers and engravers in the mid-19th century to translate what the astronomers could draw at the telescope. In both cases it’s a mediating process to bring out what the astronomer thinks he or she is seeing. We wrote the book with that in mind, to be able to educate people that this is not a departure. A number of years ago there was mild criticism in the media that these aren’t scientific images, they’re just too spectacular. But the fact is they are scientific, and we want to say that very strongly and it isn’t different from what astronomers did in the past; it’s just so much more powerful and provocative.”
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Comments (3)
AWESOME- keep em coming !!!!!!!
Posted by Peter Ballo on June 19,2009 | 05:25 PM
This is a marvel of technology in optics would be a shame to become obsolete.
Posted by Clemente Ruiz Gordillo on July 2,2009 | 04:46 AM
This truly is mind boggling and wondrous. But I am not quite sure what Dr DeVorkin means when he says that the astronomers are translating what they think they are seeing. Is this like an electron microscope where actual images are seen as they are. Or is this "drawing" a translation say much like a translator will translate a poem? The actual words are not necessarily being translated because poems are especially idiomatic where the vernacular just cannot be written word for word- in some cases it would even be unintelligible. So, just exactly what is the astronomer imaging- spectroscopic, radio wave or some other medium ? DAVID DeVORKIN REPLIES:
Astronomers receive data from Hubble’s cameras in single color bands (spectral bands) that they have chosen from an available menu of some 48 programmable color and polarizing filters in the camera. The bands are chosen mainly to reveal chemical and physical processes active in those bands. If they then choose, they can mix and match, and in effect, “colorize” any of those bands to bring out specific behaviors of the elements in the bodies they are studying that are of scientific value in their work. They can also choose colorized bands that produce aesthetically pleasing or provocative spacescapes. So astronomers do not “see” these objects “as they are” or as if one were observing at some vantage point in space (in which case typically the objects would be very low contrast). Astronomers construct these images to reveal the dynamical processes that are at play in the object.
Posted by Charles McHaley on August 5,2009 | 08:40 PM