You know that Hubble image of the hundreds/thousands of galaxies?

[LukeSkywatcher]

And here's a thought; if the next generation space telescope goes even deeper and still find galaxies I guess the Big Bang's in deep trouble!

Olly

Or someone made a mistake on the calculations and the universe is older then we think.

[onesmallstep]

Thanks. That's one more image added to my astro wallpaper library!

[blackparticle]

It is the longest exposure ever taken by an imaging platform. It took an 11 day exposure.

Not strictly true. One of the links says it was 800 exposures totalling 11.3 days imaging time but still an impressive feat. I wonder what the SGL record is for a single image?

I chuckled at the factoid that said it would take Hubble 1 million years to map out the whole sky at this resolution. It just shows you how much there is out there.

[Dr_Who_46]

there was a post on here about having your last wow factor . . . think thats it

[anuvid]

I may try an 11 day exposure on my 127 Mak. But not holding my breath

[Syntarsus]

I liked this quote:

If astronomers made the Hubble Ultra Deep Field observation over the entire sky, how long would it take?

The whole sky contains 12.7 million times more area than the Ultra Deep Field. To observe the entire sky would take

almost 1 million years

of uninterrupted observing.

[davy999]

It is staggering how much detail was found in nothing.

But as an aside as we are talking about exposure times etc.. when I showed a work colleague an image on SGL ages ago that had over 24 hours exposure their response was...

"how did they still see the stars when the sun is out" ????? i just turned around and walked away.. you can't help some people!

[Aquila]

You mean this one?

APOD: 2009 December 9 - HUDF Infrared: Dawn of the Galaxies

That's the infra-red version. It has a link to the visible light version.

heres about the hubble ultra deep field image (the 2nd one taken i think)

HubbleSite - NewsCenter - Hubble's Deepest View Ever of the Universe Unveils Earliest Galaxies (03/09/2004) - Introduction

here we go!

HubbleSite - Image Tours - Hubble Ultra Deep Field

heres a video as well paul this one is undescribeable in its scene

Much thanks for these! All very awesome. Made my day, if not the week, month, or even longer.

[JohnnyD333]

And here's a thought; if the next generation space telescope goes even deeper and still find galaxies I guess the Big Bang's in deep trouble!

Olly

At this point, I just hope we continue to invest in space research.

[msinclairinork]

It's the variety of galaxies that blow me away! No two are alike and that makes me believe that almost anything is possible. Imagine a species any species your imagination can muster...and it probably exists. Imagine a device that does something we can really conceive...yup a civilisation in that galaxy to the right of the image had that a couple million years go.

Michael

[dph1nm]

Not strictly true. One of the links says it was 800 exposures totalling 11.3 days imaging time but still an impressive feat.

This was split between four filters. So g and r got about 1.5 days each - the remainder was split 50/50 between two near infra-red bands. Individual subs were about 20mins I think.

NigelM

[DavidOfBanff]

I have this photo as the wallpaper on my phone. Looks good and just reminds me how insignificant that 'urgent' phone call is........

Titan, if you're my plumber would you please pick up your phone. Thankyou.

[661-pete]

And one starts wondering - suppose there's a bunch of astronomers living on one of those 'little' galaxies right 'now' - and they've put a big 'scope into orbit - and they've got it trained straight at us - what would they see?

Of course this is all nonsense because of the time factor. They'd have to be far off in the future, instead of far back in the past, to see our MW as it is now...

It is staggering how much detail was found in nothing.

But as an aside as we are talking about exposure times etc.. when I showed a work colleague an image on SGL ages ago that had over 24 hours exposure their response was...

"how did they still see the stars when the sun is out" ????? i just turned around and walked away.. you can't help some people!

With all respect, I think that's a perfectly reasonable question for your friend to ask. Many non-astronomers don't realise that astroimaging is nowadays done electronically and piecemeal, with many subs stacked to create the final image. After all, it wasn't so long ago that all astroimaging was done on film emulsion with a long exposure taken in a single frame in one session. In fact many imagers still do that...