The sharpest image ever taken of the spiral galaxy M81

reply to post by apc


That sounds too long. Lets cheat and FOLD space. Time = Zero

reply to post by Eurisko2012


Lol yeah that would spare some time.

reply to post by Enceladus


I don't understand one thing! If the Hubble can take Hi-Def snapshots of a spiral galaxy that is 11.6 million light years away why is it that we are still viewing black and white photos of the moon? i do believe it is closer than M81 nes pa?
We should have such clear photos that there would be no room for desscusion as to whats on the surface of the moon...

Sorry if i posted this in the wrong place i'm new here just getting familiar

Because believe it or not, the moon is TOO close. The Hubble was designed to focus on objects very far away. It's like using binoculars to look at a flower. It can't focus on something that close, no matter how hard you try.

reply to post by Enceladus
Fnatastic image star and flag and will add to my collection, thanks for sharing it.
Here is some info about the spiral--
Galaxy in Ursa Major
NGC 3031 9h 51m.5 +69? 18'
Basic data: Messier 81 has a total magnitude of about 7.9 visually and 8.4 photographically. Its extreme dimensions on photographs are 21-by-10 minutes of arc. This splendid Sb spiral is about 7,000,000 light-years distant, according to Allan Sandage in 1954. As is to be expected for such a relatively galaxy, the red shift is small: 88 kilometers per second.
Visual appearance: In the 5-inch refractor, a beautiful object! As seen in that telescope, M81 has the most strongly granular central region of almost any galaxy. The outer parts are mottled and uneven in brightness and texture.

reply to post by angelc01


Yes It is in fact one of the beautiful image captured. Try to download the .tif file you can spend hours with that big file. Thanks for the details provided in your post.

I...Am.....Speechless

The Universe is too beautiful to ignore.

[edit on 8-5-2008 by CzErased]

A better question would be: “If we have high power surveillance satellites in orbit around the Earth which can be used to read the news paper I am reading in the park, why don’t we have on in orbit around the Moon, Mars and Venus?”

There is no excuse in not having this, it is a crime to science, astronomy and humanity (I don’t like that word; sentience would be a better term). It could reveal some amazing things and also close the whole “Fake” Moon landings Debate.

Hi there.

Just to help clear up a mystery, this image (the one everyone is refering to as a Quasar), is actually TWO COLLIDING galaxies.

Originally posted by zerotime

Here is a few examples of such a thing.




This i feel is EXTREMELY similar to the "Quasar" in question...



PFFT!! ATS has been having these mantinance problems for over a year now.....quite infuriating.

Right, well heres the link to that image.....
Colliding galaxies

Hope that helps. Cheers

AoN

[edit on 9-9-2008 by Jbird]

SWEET! Oh im making that galaxy my wallpaper!

thats beautiful i think i just found my new desktop wallpaper

Starred and Flagged. I actually laughed when the star system was full and then its just like "+33 more" lol.

The picture is AWESOME. New desktop background thats for sure. I'm also downloading the large one. But since my cuniversity has crappy, very crappy internet, its going at roughly 7kb a sec, so its gunna take a day or so. wirth it, though.

Fantastic!! It's like a magical garden, it's real but so unreal in my perception.So unreal because we may never get there.This makes me feel like a lttle bug.We are just little bugs that do not understand anything.Now I know how it feels to be an insect.I don't think man kind will ever be a able to get there.

[edit on 9-9-2008 by pepsi78]

reply to post by Enceladus


Thank you!

And again its very apreciated:-)

If you look at it in negative the center you can almost make out the event horizon, from the supermassive black hole, almost like the eye of hurricane.

Ah the fractal self repeating numbers of nature, that create the form of our reality, awe inspiring.

How many life forms (intelligent) do you guys think live in M81?

Im going for between 1-10,000.

Regards,

Elf.

reply to post by Nohup

Oh dear, Nohup. You're usually dead on target, but once in a blue moon you come up with a wild shy like this and make your friends worry about you.

Lack of evidence is just that. No evidence. You can hypothesize about some wonderful "virtual" evidence out there just waiting to be found, but that don't make it real.

No quarrel with any of that. It reflects my own views perfectly. But when you add this...

Or even possibly real.

...you go too far, I think.

There are, as the OP's wonderful find demonstrates, a lot of stars in the universe. In our own galaxy, we're finding planets in orbit around so many of those stars that many astronomers now regard planetary formation as a standard phase in the stellar life cycle.

And the only planet we know very much about is literally lousy with life.

Given these facts, the sensible hypothesis is that life is relatively common - perhaps extremely common - in the universe. It is neither logical nor scientific to assume a priori that it is not.

Don't forget that logic and science alike are based on the assumption that nature is consistent. That is why we can use the yardstick of replicability to test hypotheses by experiment.

In the present case, what we now know about the universe allows us to say with some confidence that life is more likely than not to be found on at least some other planets. We can say this precisely because we expect nature to be consistent.

You say - I paraphrase - that if it were ever established that only Earth harbours life, it would make us someohow even less special. On the contrary, it would make us very special indeed. It would make the inhabitants of Earth's biosphere the sensory apparatus of the entire universe, and in us humans would reside its consciousness. Thus, at least, to the contemplative minority; to the rest, it would suggest simply that the universe was made for us. Human exceptionalism, once put Earth at the centre of the universe; science pulled us out of that hole, and I neither expect nor hope that it will put us back in again.

I don't know if there's other life out there. Maybe there is. But I prefer not to just believe in it because there are a lot of stars and planets out there.

No-one expects you to believe in it as an article of faith. But an intelligent, educated person (such as I know you are) should be able to accept the very strong likelihood of it.