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Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

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Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#221

Absolutely incredible. For a little bit of context for how impressive this is, here's my take on it with a consumer grade 8" Newtonian telescope from my backyard: https://www.astrobin.com/full/w4tjwt/0/

Here is my Esprit 120mm widefield version https://www.astrobin.com/full/r97r5j/0/

Oh nice! Except for Alnitak (I love me some spikes), I like yours more.

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#222

Absolutely incredible. For a little bit of context for how impressive this is, here's my take on it with a consumer grade 8" Newtonian telescope from my backyard: https://www.astrobin.com/full/w4tjwt/0/

That’s super cool!!! Looks like quite a niche/technical hobby with amazing output. Do you mind sharing how much equipment costs to get similar results?

It's a wonderful niche/technical hobby, but it's not cheap. You could even say it's "pay to win". I didn't buy all of my stuff at once, and I had some mistakes, but I'd guess I use on the order of $10k in equipment.

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#223
post #183

The youtube link to a 'zoom' in video to the image: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkVprNB5XbI What is really, really neat to notice isn't just the detail in that final image.... look behind it, and there are whole edge-on spiral galaxies in the distance. Not stars. Galaxies. The nebula is about 1375 light years away. Those galaxies in the distance.... are billions of light years away. It's hard to comprehend.

Do you (or does anyone) know about how zoomed in the video is at the start? Like is that the milky way and are there some things in that starting frame that I could identify with the naked eye? It seems like it is already quite zoomed in to start with, but I can't tell how much.

At the start of the video you are looking at a good potion of the whole visible sky. If you look at the very center of the frame, there is Orion, and you can see the three close bright stars together that we zoom in towards are Orion's belt.

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your picture is itself quite impressive. Do you mind sharing more about the equipment and process it takes to capture something like that? Edit: Oh, you can click through the image and see technical details. Very cool.

You already noticed the technical card [1], but I can describe some of the details that go into this for those unfamiliar with the items on it. 1. The scope they used is roughly equivalent to shooting with an 800mm telephoto lens. But the fact that it's 8" wide means it can let in a lot of light. 2. The camera [2] is a cooled monochrome camera. Sensor heat is a major source of noise, so the idea is to cool the sensor…

Thanks for detailing this. Learned a lot.

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#225
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We may not know the exact size at the start, but we know it was infinitesimally smaller than it is today. So the size of the initial universe isn't a big factor in the equations about how big it likely is today. Weather it started as a few centimeters across or a few thousand light years across, both are functionally zero compared to the current size.

We don’t know that, though. Consider an evolution of a flat coordinate plane given by (x,y) -> (e^t * x, e^t * y). This process can run forever and has the property that all points appear to move away from all other points through time, yet the size of the plane never changes. It’s better to think of the Big Bang as describing a point in time rather than a point in space.

> Consider an evolution of a flat coordinate plane given by (x,y) -> (e^t * x, e^t * y). This process can run forever and has the property that all points appear to move away from all other points through time, yet the size of the plane never changes.

What do you mean by that last claim? Any observable region is bigger at later times than it is at earlier times. The reason all points always appear to be moving away from all other points is that that is in fact happening.

What's the significance of claiming that the size of the infinite plane never changes? It's just as true that if you start with the unit interval [0, 1] and let it evolve under the transformation f(x) = tx, the size of the interval will never change -- every interval calculated at any point in time will be in perfect 1:1 correspondence with the original (except at t=0). But this doesn't mean that the measured length of the interval at different times isn't changing; it is.

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#226

Wow. The NIRCam image is probably going to be the most exciting new photo, but I can't get over how well MIRI reveals the internal structure of the nebula. NIRCam: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/04/Horsehead_... MIRI: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/04/Horsehead_... Comparison: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/04/Slider_Too...

Crazy how many galaxies are in that one photo (in the background).

We are probably looking at galaxies when we look at some stars and have no idea how many turtles deep things go.

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's this galactic farmer you're talking about?

One or more beings with power and intelligence many orders of magnitude higher than our own. To call it god or gods gives a religious tone to it that totally derails the discussion and I’m specifically avoiding. This isn’t about going to church on Sundays. There are a few answers to the “Where are they?” question. One is that the parameters to the Drake equation mean life is so rare we actually are alone (as another…

I suppose there could be a distinction, but that is the idea of God, and that is the rational foundation for God's existence in Abrahamic religions. Funny to think that scientific development could invoke faith in some ways.

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#228
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t know that, though. Consider an evolution of a flat coordinate plane given by (x,y) -> (e^t * x, e^t * y). This process can run forever and has the property that all points appear to move away from all other points through time, yet the size of the plane never changes. It’s better to think of the Big Bang as describing a point in time rather than a point in space.

> Consider an evolution of a flat coordinate plane given by (x,y) -> (e^t * x, e^t * y). This process can run forever and has the property that all points appear to move away from all other points through time, yet the size of the plane never changes. What do you mean by that last claim? Any observable region is bigger at later times than it is at earlier times. The reason all points always appear to be moving away f…

[deleted]

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One or more beings with power and intelligence many orders of magnitude higher than our own. To call it god or gods gives a religious tone to it that totally derails the discussion and I’m specifically avoiding. This isn’t about going to church on Sundays. There are a few answers to the “Where are they?” question. One is that the parameters to the Drake equation mean life is so rare we actually are alone (as another…

I suppose there could be a distinction, but that is the idea of God, and that is the rational foundation for God's existence in Abrahamic religions. Funny to think that scientific development could invoke faith in some ways.

I’m specifically not invoking faith. This doesn’t support Abrahamic religions more than any other. The line of reasoning here applies just as much to Hinduism, simulation theory, many creation stories, zoo theory, etc.

Re: Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose there could be a distinction, but that is the idea of God, and that is the rational foundation for God's existence in Abrahamic religions. Funny to think that scientific development could invoke faith in some ways.

I’m specifically not invoking faith. This doesn’t support Abrahamic religions more than any other. The line of reasoning here applies just as much to Hinduism, simulation theory, many creation stories, zoo theory, etc.

The idea that the universe was created by a higher being applies to every religion, but does not invoke faith? If you were to believe that theory at all it would require faith. How else could you believe it? No matter what you call it, there is a leap of faith.
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