Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2008

krou writes "The Big Picture blog is running a Hubble Space Telescope imagery Advent Calendar, where for 25 days (it started on the 1st of December), a new photo will be revealed from the Hubble Space Telescope."

What ever happened...

[Thelasko]

to separation of church and space?

Re:

[Archangel Michael]

Better tell that to the astrologers out there!

Re:

[iluvcapra]

The Hubble is clearly a vital strategic initiative in the Star War on Christmas.

Badum-bum, Try the veal.

Re:

[osu-neko]

to separation of church and space?

Hehe. But seriously, there has been a strong link between religion and astronomy (in the broad sense) since prehistoric times. Ancient people didn't build astroliths to conduct scientific experiments...

A picture?

[HardCase]

But...are they chocolate pictures? Mmmmm...chocolate universe...

But why wait 25 days?

[liraz]

Showing one image a day for 25 days is a great way to generate repeat traffic for your blog and increase page views, especially if your blog is picked up by Slashdot!

Or you could skip the middle man and go directly to the source and get as many beautiful HST images [hubblesite.org] as you want... right now.

Re:

[bigjarom]

Thanks, but you shouldn't point things out to the masses... oh wait, this is /.

Re:

[dtml-try MyNick]

This is one blog that doesn't really need the attention. Boston.com is already pretty renown for it's excelent photographic series.

The bigpicture section of the site is updated weekly with amazing shots of a specific subject and linked to by a large number of other websites. This post on /. is just one in many I have seen linking to them.

In short, this is one site that should be bookmarked if you're into nice photographs.

Re:

[Andr T.]

They could make _real_ calendar, with one picture each month, and sell high-quality prints of those. I'd buy one.

Or I could just get one of beautiful naked girls. Hmm... forget about the star pictures. They should make one of naked girls in space or something.

Re:

[An ominous Cow art]

I have a feeling that most people wouldn't find the girls quite as beautiful after they've been in space a while.

Re:But why wait 25 days?

[kevin_conaway]

Showing one image a day for 25 days is a great way to generate repeat traffic for your blog and increase page views, especially if your blog is picked up by Slashdot! Or you could skip the middle man and go directly to the source and get as many beautiful HST images as you want... right now.

Because thats what an advent calendar is!

I understand that being skeptical of blog postings is tradition (and a good way to get mod points) on Slashdot but trust me, the Big Picture does just fine without needing to troll Slashdot for hits

Wise Men complain

[MosesJones]

Today the Union of Wise Men complained about the Hubble advent calendar and released the following statement

"How on earth are we meant to follow a star if using Hubble we can now see billions of the buggers and makes it clear that rather than being Wise men we are in fact just gullible fools who are clinging to an outdated set of beliefs and primitive ideas on how the Universe operates. We insist that the Hubble advent calendar and telescope are shutdown immediately in order to prevent our beliefs in star following being ridiculed as a result of this vicious use of information. The Union of Wise Men is in favour of scientific endeavour as long as it doesn't imply that star following is a silly way of finding things."

The Union of Wise Men also denied that Star following tended to happen after they staggered out of a pub drunk and went "oooh look at the pretty star".

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[MyLongNickName]

I've been reading through "The Audacity of Hope" by Barrack Obama. I am not a huge Obama supporter, but figure it would be good to read through the then-presidential-hopeful and now President elect's thoughts. One thing that impressed me is how Barrack identifies the "I'm right an will ridicule everyone who disagrees with me" mentality as the single most harmful element of political discourse today. He has a great point. take a look at Slashdot. Out of 100 "disagreement" threads, how many are actually civil

Re:

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I'm reminded of the classic line from "Good Morning Vietnam":

"You are in more dire need of a blowjob than any white man in history."

Re:

[boredgourd]

Speaking as a member of that belief system, I was amused.

But the knee-jerk anti-religion ideology (different entirely from thoughtful critique or reasonable skepticism) that is common in these parts does get old. For some reason, conversations about religion tend to make their participants (supporters and critics alike) particularly closed-minded.

JA

Re:

[Vrst1013]

Well said.

Re:

[theLOUDroom]

Your post did nothing to advance discourse.

It is not possible to advance the discourse.

The beliefs he's ridiculing are based on pure, blind FAITH.
It's the same basis that suicide bombers use to support their actions, that was used to justfiy the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition.

The is no such thing as a rational discourse here because these people are not rational.
All you can do is make it blindingly obivous to the people that are not 100% locked into an arbitrary belief system, that beliefs b

Re:

[atraintocry]

Meh, that's just Slashdot IMO. Seems like the downside of having a relatively sophisticated moderation system is that people treat the whole site like it's a video game. One where you get points for loudly showing that the guy above you is not as smart or as funny as you are. Lots of other sites don't have this problem. I know I'd trade some of the fine-grained control over which comments show up full-sized for a little more civility.

But I am guilty of this as well.

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[E++99]

I remember an interesting survey of religions beliefs across different scientific fields. Astronomers were the one group that stood out as containing almost no atheists.

Re:

[Vrst1013]

Very interesting. Source?

who else read that

[prgrmr]

as the Hubble Space Telescope imaginary Advent Calendar?

Re:

[camperdave]

Who else read that as the Hubble Space Telescope imaginary Advent Calendar?

I don't know whether you need more coffee or less, but please, do something.

Re:

[prgrmr]

more, undoubtedly more.

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[osu-neko]

I don't know whether you need more coffee or less, but please, do something.

Hey hey, be careful with the blasphemies. Suggesting there might be such thing as too much coffee... that's just evil...

Sneaking a peak under the petticoat of creation...

[Brad_McBad]

If Jesus comes finds out that we're using his birthday as an excuse to peddle images of his dad's side projects he's going to come back packing heat.

Re:

[Brad_McBad]

The winter solstice occurs between 20/12 and 23/12. It's been moved to a former pagan holiday. Anyways, he'd forgive us. That's his deal. That and being a parable.

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[osu-neko]

Specifically, a Roman holiday. When the emperors converted to Christianity, they rebranded their favorite holidays.

Advent is not 25 days long every year...

[Sopor42]

I'm not even a Christian and it bothers me that Advent calendars are commonly 25 days long. Advent is NOT the days of December leading up to Christmas! It is the days from Advent Sunday [wikipedia.org] (Wikipedia), which this years was 30 November, to Christmas. Which at one point in the history of this mostly harmless Earth was a celebration of the birth of Christ...

Re:

[E++99]

The length of the "advent season", the season leading up to Christmas, varies depending on tradition. It begins on Advent Sunday (4 Sundays before Christmas) for Roman Catholics and Anglicans (and maybe others). However, advent calendars were introduced by German Lutherans, who had 24 days of Advent, beginning on December 1st. Adding a 25th day for Christmas itself is a modern innovation.

Re:

[Sopor42]

That's what I get for being atheistic and complaining about Christian tradition ;-)

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[Tubal-Cain]

Adding a 25th day for Christmas itself is a modern innovation.

Thats about as "innovative" as some patents.

The 25th Picture

[aardwolf64]

The 25th picture will be an archived copy of the first ever image from the Hubble. You know, the one where they forgot to remove the lens cap. :-)

I always thought advent was the TV

[jollyreaper]

It spews commercials so it must be the ad vent.

Mine was a troubled childhood.

The 25th picture...

[dpbsmith]

...will show a nova in the sky over an Earthlike extrasolar planet.

Question for Space Wallpaper Fans

[TheModelEskimo]

Where are you getting your *sharp* space wallpaper images from? 99% of the space wallpaper images I've seen look like they were scanned in from a newspaper. Basically it seems like they were blown up from a smaller size, letting an interpolating algorithm have it's way. Or they are just old images from old space hardware. I prefer crisp images, so I'm wondering if there are any out there besides the awesome ones from the surface of Mars...