Hubble Releases First Post-Upgrade Images 129
Hynee writes "As tweeted, NASA has released 10 new images, all from the new WFC3 instrument and others, including the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. Images include NGC 6302, Carina Nebula, Stephan's Quintet, Markarian 817, Abell 370, and a few others. Great looking stuff, the WFC3 has twice the resolution of the WF/PC2, on the CCD at least, if memory serves correctly. Eta Carina is a fascinating object, and there are at least two releases in this 'Early Release Observations' set."
Here is a video about the new images at Hubblesite.org, and a full HubbleSite.org release page with 56 images.
Re:This is REALLY a US site for US persons (Score:5, Insightful)
What you are doing is supposed to be science not PR.
You think hubblesite.org is about science instead of PR, huh? NASA depends on good PR in order to survive.
Re:Colors in photographs (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is if you put filters as part of the light sensitive array, that would be all they can be used for. The Hubble probably has Red Green and Blue filters as part of its kit as well as a bunch of others that look at specific spectral lines for study. If you combine RGB filtered pictures in the right proportions, you get what we consider to be "natural" color. But it also has narrow band filters for other capabilities like Hydrogen Alpha (in the red band) and Sulfur along with many others. These can be combined to give scientists a visual input as to how the different elements are distributed in the clusters/clouds/etc.
So the Hubble can produce what we interpret as "natural color" but it can also photograph frequencies that we cannot see visually (human vision is pretty limited in spectral range) such as Ultra violet and Infra red.
So by having what we would consider to be "gray scale", with the use of the filters, tremendous amounts of information about the makeup and distribution of objects can be obtained.
Re:Do people still argue Hubble is a waste? (Score:2, Insightful)
A lot of libertarian types' arguments aren't worth listening to. They are mostly half-educated hacks whose entire philosophy is based on one value, "freedom", don't realize that most people have many competing values, and can't appreciate nuance just like most extremists.
Hubble's discoveries have had a major impact on the way I view the universe. Its old images are still my screen-saver, I can't wait to update them. If any NASA/astronomer types are reading this, I want to give you a huge heart-felt THANK YOU.