Hubble's Hidden Treasures - Incredible views of the Universe

Last March, the operators of the Hubble Space Telescope launched a competition, inviting amateur astronomers to dig into hundreds of thousands of images of outer space, helping discover hidden treasures and bring them to light. Yesterday, NASA and the European Space Agency announced the winners in both categories: image processing, where entrants composed their own images based on Hubble data, and image search, where entrants simply uncovered amazing images not previously released.



First prize and winner of the public vote:


Josh Lake, star-forming region NGC 1763

Josh Lake (USA) submitted a stunning image of NGC 1763, part of the N11 star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. ESA/Hubble had previously published an image of an area just adjacent to this (heic1011), based on observations by the same team. Josh took a different approach, producing a bold two-colour image which contrasts the light from glowing hydrogen and nitrogen. The image is not in natural colours — hydrogen and nitrogen produce almost indistinguishable shades of red light that our eyes would struggle to tell apart — but Josh’s processing separates them out into blue and red, dramatically highlighting the structure of the region. As well as narrowly topping the jury’s vote, Josh Lake also won the public vote.

Second prize:


Andre van der Hoeven, spiral galaxy Messier 77

Andre van der Hoeven (Netherlands) came a close second in the jury vote. His image of the spiral galaxy Messier 77 is highly attractive, and is also an impressive piece of image processing, combining a number of datasets from separate instruments into one amazing picture. Andre entered several other noteworthy images into the competition, including a huge image of Messier 106, combining data from Hubble and other telescopes. His image of NGC 6537, a star-forming region, greatly impressed the jury too.

I was personally very impressed by the shape of this one:


NGC 4526

Source: geckzilla flickr's photo album

Source with the rest of the prizes and photos.

Awesome OP! S&F.

Sometimes I wonder if a small portion of what we're seeing are actually sentient beings, but our understanding of the universe is so limited, we fail to recognize life that is beyond our perception of it.

Man I can never get enough of these. What I wouldn't give to see one of these with my own eyes through a port hole. Makes my head hurt to think about it.

so given false colour, does this mean that if we were to look at them out of a port hole, they wouldn't look as impressive . They'd still be impressive though, given all the visible light we'd see but just not as colourful?

Originally posted by Klassified
Awesome OP! S&F.

Sometimes I wonder if a small portion of what we're seeing are actually sentient beings, but our understanding of the universe is so limited, we fail to recognize life that is beyond our perception of it.

Yes, inwardly and outwardly, we simply do not understand the universe we exist in...We are such limited creatures when we simply think in terms of this material world.

To truly understand the nature of the universe and lies beyond is to start thinking in terms of metaphysics, how things are scalar and the fact that we do live in a fractal universe (however we are a part of this universe as well so our reality goes beyond this physical one).

That's why I find it hard when people say that some guy over there is god, the same guy who has the same weaknesses and fallacies we do.

So the winner's photo was photoshopped by introducing artificial colours?
Is that my correct understanding?
If so that should not be the winner at all, although a nice picture.
But is it real?
Bit like Lance Armstrong on drugs, he maybe was 'enhanced by artificial means".
Just like this picture maybe was "enhanced by artificial means".

my mind is pouring out of my ears looking at those pics!
so surreal

my fav
the cheshire cat!

Indeed truly awe inspiring

reply to post by elevenaugust

Yah. love this one too. I gives me pause to think that galaxies have vast rings of dust and stuff outside their star region boundaries. Sort of like the Ort cloud around our solar system but on a much larger scale. Back lit, the dust clouds are visible in your image. From afar they resolve into clouds, but up close my impression is that they become opaque. You could not see the dust around you if you were inside them.

img850.imageshack.us...

reply to post by elevenaugust


Finally some real news on ATS

reply to post by Sailor Sam


I actually think it's quite clever what was done to the photo. If it was left unaltered it would just have been mostly red. What he did was separate the hydrogen gases from the nitrogen gases to accent and show the gaseous make-up of the clouds region.

It's like mental push-ups trying to fathom the size and scope of those pics, also did anyone notice the creepy ghost face in the first prize winner's pic?

Pictures if the universe just blows my mind! If there are unseen/dicovered galaxies, planets and solar systems, this gives credence to the posibility of undiscovered life on other planets.

reply to post by rambo1112


R.I.P to Neil Armstrong who passed away on Saturday 25/08/2012 from cardiovascular complication...a man who has ventured further than most of mankind and was taken away so quickly :'(

Such a vast Universe. We are just a virus to the universe it seems.

Doctored up, or not, they are all great photos. When i see pictures like this it makes me think of how small the Earth is in the grand scheme of things.

reply to post by elevenaugust
Thanks for this,Truly beautiful pics and now saving up for a half decent telescope as am developing keen interest in astronomy and thanks hubble.

Originally posted by SepticSceptic
Doctored up, or not, they are all great photos. When i see pictures like this it makes me think of how small the Earth is in the grand scheme of things.

doctored up or not????

i think hubble mucking around with images is just insulting.

you guys will believe anything lol

all i see is swamp gas, nothing to see here folks, move along, move along



they look so peaceful, to bad its like dangerous gas and radiation, i wonder though, when i see these if there are planets like ours just sitting in atmospheres of methane or what not and what kind of people/things would live there or even if we just found a plant that eats radiation and methane and makes some kind of usefull cure as a by-product lol