SPACE: for your enjoyment

[texbaylea]

A collection of 10 weird and beautiful photographs from space.

Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, news, sport, showbiz, health, femail, comment | the Daily Mail

These are from the Hubble Space Telescope. I am glad that the new NASA Administrator has decided on another Hubble service mission.

Vernon

 

[EddieWalker]

Vernon,

Thanks for the link. Those pictures are just amazing. I had no idea there were things that looked like that in space!!!

Eddie

 

[texbaylea]

Eddie

I am afraid it makes us and our concerns kind of small.

Vernon

 

[dmccarty]

I was curious about the images. Really I want some to print and hang. Found the following which is interesting. The photos are available for free from the website. You just have to print them.

HubbleSite - Reference Desk - FAQs

Later,
Dan

 

[texbaylea]

Dan

I should have mention that, thanks.

Vernon

 

[DieselPower]

Thanks for the link. It has been a while since I visited the Hubble telescope site. Almost forgot they had all those great pic's.

 

[weldingisfun]

WOW! Amazing photos. Thanks for bringing them to us.

 

[escavader]

THANKS,THE KIDS AND I REALLY ENJOYED THEM
ALAN

 

[Highbeam]

I have always wondered, are the colors real? I was able to see Saturn with my little student telescope once, the ring was very clear and nice to see. It was white just as venus or jupiter appear. Are the colors fake like technicolor or the wizard of Oz?

 

[riptides]

Not only are the colors real, that happened millions of light years ago.

Think about that for a while.....

-Mike Z.

 

[Shimon]

Not only are the colors real, that happened millions of light years ago.

Actually, the colors are not technically real since Hubble only takes pictures in greayscale. The colors are added but they try to represent them accurately.

From the Hubble site:

There are no "natural color" cameras aboard the Hubble and never have been. The optical cameras on board have all been digital CCD cameras, which take images as grayscale pixels.

Sometimes the color is as natural as possible. However, the color given to the images is not just "artistic embellishment." The images are, indeed, downloaded as black and white, and color is added for a number of different reasons – for example, to show the dispersion detail of chemical elements and highlight features so subdued that the human eye cannot see them.

And here is more information for the curious: link.

 

[Highbeam]

I'm telling you, saturn was as white as a ghost. Could it be fake? I hate being tricked.

 

[BTDT]

I used to have a 4" reflector telescope, and I remember gazing for hours at the stars and planets. I showed one of my high school buddy's Saturn, and he said "Look, it really does have rings around it". I said sure it does, what did you think? He replied, "I thought they just drew those on there to tell it from the others."

 

[Shimon]

I'm telling you, saturn was as white as a ghost. Could it be fake? I hate being tricked.

Saturn does have natural coloring but it's hard to make it out with a small telescope with inferior optics. I've been able to see some of the coloring (but not very well) with an 8" reflector.