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, ESA, STScl, J. Hester and P. Scowen (Arizona State University)
"Pillar" in the Eagle Nebula (1995)
This is a colorized version of one of the pillars in the Eagle Nebula. The image, write DeVorkin and Smith, “shows fingers of gas and dust created in the shadow of dense protostar systems. These systems block radiation from intensely hot, massive stars clustered in the nebula’s cavity. The tiny tips of these fingers are comparable in size to our solar system.”
“This is a huge chasm in space,” says DeVorkin, “one that is vastly larger than our imaginations can allow us to deal with. The tiniest tips of these things are bigger than the solar system. The human mind can conceive of these things, but can’t—I don’t think—really live with it in any way. This [nebula] is not visible, even though it’s in the visible wavelengths. The contrasts and the range have been hugely expanded. [This colorized photograph is] a tribute to the artistic minds of these astronomers who create these images.”
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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