Hubble Ultra-Deep Field gone Deeper

Researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias have spent the last 3 years working on reprocessing the original Ultra-Deep Field data using new technology to produce the deepest image of the Universe ever taken from space , 3 years well spent I think.

The HUDF is the result of combining hundreds of images taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) of the HST during over 230 hours of observation which, in 2012, yielded the deepest image of the Universe taken until then. But the method of combining the individual images was not ideally suited to detect faint extended objects.

To do this, Borlaff explains “What we have done is to go back to the archive of the original images, directly as observed by the HST, and improve the process of combination, aiming at the best image quality not only for the more distant smaller galaxies but also for the extended regions of the largest galaxies.

The image of the universe which is now the deepest “has been possible thanks to a striking improvement in the techniques of image processing which has been achieved in recent years, a field in which the group working in the IAC is at the forefront”, says Borlaff.
www.iac.es...

Life in a Petri dish.

About the image itself:

The new version of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. We see in dark grey the new light which has been found around the galaxies of the image. The sum of this extra light is equivalent to the emission from over a hundred thousand million suns.Credit: A. S. Borlaff et al

Not a single patch of sky is as empty as we see it from here.

Truly remarkable image.

a reply to: gortex

This is awesome............love it !! One's imagination can run wild. Never ending. Thanks for sharing.

And it will all vanish into oblivion when I die. At least for me, anyway, which is all that matters.

a reply to: gortex

Pretty cool image, it does look like a Petri dish.

a reply to: gortex

My God its full of stars!!!.......


Used to have the Hubble deep field as my desk top, would sit there sometimes and wonder theres got to be intelligent life out there, thats too many Suns and worlds. But also makes ypu realize we are just a speck whats the chances of beings stumbling in on us.

If you can do that with a small orbiting telescope just imagine if we built a huge reflector array on the far side of the moon.
No light pollution, no atmospheric interference, been daydreaming about that for years.

Fascinating, also because you're looking back in time 10-15 billion years.

Impossible to know what is actually there now, what it looks like etc.

a reply to: projectvxn

The better the raw data is in a form that is a representation of what really is there is best, a snapshot of a specific time and location where matter comprised of galaxies and nebulae and stars.

13.8 billion light years, (7.642 × 10 to 22nd power miles), the diameter of the Universe at the big bang. Now its 96 billion light years. All of the stars of the Milky Way are visible from anywhere on Earth but not far galaxies as the picture shows.

One day technology will advance to where the 2012 deep-field image will be further enhanced to show nothing but white, where we now see dark spots?

Wow, that reminds me when i zoom my microscope too close.

As below, so above!