Comments on: Two Hubble STUNNERS!

By: Taylor

Taylor — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:07:38 +0000

There should be extr improvement in-order to save the nation.

By: Hubble resets the awe meter with Virgo Cluster stunners | Reality Wired

Hubble resets the awe meter with Virgo Cluster stunners | Reality Wired — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:18:51 +0000

[...] Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (from before the recent repair mission). They’re both spiral galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, the nearest large collection of galaxies to us, roughly 60 million light years from [...]

By: StuartB

StuartB — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:16:14 +0000

Awesome shots, and also +100 kudos points for coining “to brobdingnangate”. Definitely my new favourite word.

By: Guy Gordon

Guy Gordon — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:57:19 +0000

I wish to file a complaint. Having searched for “awesome stunners” and “jaw dropping pair” imagine my shock at arriving here. This sort of thing should be banned from the internet.

By: NGC4522: "ahí es donde vive el Dios de dioses" « Pulsogeek

NGC4522: "ahí es donde vive el Dios de dioses" « Pulsogeek — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:56:23 +0000

[...] Hubble y su nueva cámara no dejan de enviar impresionantes imágenes del universo. La que aparece en la fotografía de arriba es la galaxia NGC4522 ubicada en la constelación de [...]

By: The latest from Hubble: « The Art of Science

The latest from Hubble: « The Art of Science — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:35:50 +0000

[...] and Bad Astronomy discussed this phenomenon a little bit. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Latest [...]

By: Charles J. Slavis, Jr.

Charles J. Slavis, Jr. — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:50:36 +0000

Is the speed from a massive black hole?

By: Charles J. Slavis, Jr.

Charles J. Slavis, Jr. — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:39:41 +0000

Twice the fun! Hershel has arrived!

By: David H.

David H. — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 06:43:16 +0000

These objects surely do have many pretty names, from millions of different civilizations scatterred throughout the multiverse.

By: Ad Hominid

Ad Hominid — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:59:39 +0000

Wow indeed. This connected with one of my earliest coherent memories, myself as a little boy standing in a Texas pasture back in the early 50s, looking up at the iridescent summer sky and asking “What are they? What is out there?”
It makes me joyously happy to have lived long enough to see this, and all the other wonders the men and women of science have brought us in this age of miracles.

By: bigpopa_pump69

bigpopa_pump69 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:20:58 +0000

fine women and distant galaxys are to things to be admired with fine conac

By: BakerFox

BakerFox — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:21:25 +0000

I say we take the Hubble telescope and mount it on the ISS!

By: Wendy

Wendy — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:15:56 +0000

Wow, wow, wow!!!

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:16:59 +0000

Absolutely stunning images! Jaw on floor and awe factor off the scale. Every time I see images from Hubble I am amazed at how big out there is and how small in here is….

By: Entre galaxias a bordo del Hubble - Ojo Cientifico

Entre galaxias a bordo del Hubble - Ojo Cientifico — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:53:15 +0000

[...] situadas en el Cúmulo Virgo, intensamente masivo y con una fuerza de gravedad impresionante. Las imágenes que vemos arriba corresponden a la galaxia NGC 4402 (izquierda) y NGC 4522 (derecha). Ambas son galaxias en espiral [...]

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:56:37 +0000

Gods sperm, this is the evidence we have all been awaiting

By: Keith Haley

Keith Haley — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:54:39 +0000

Just simply amazed … even more amazed of the very distant galaxies that are barely visable in the photographs… just was wondering how far away are they…

Only one thing to say is Awesome ….

By: NGC4522 Is Where God’s God Lives [Image Cache] | Free Article – New Information Online

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:45:49 +0000

[...] I don’t know about you, but looking at these I feel terribly small. Like Mark just said: “That’s where God’s God lives.” [Discover] [...]

By: angel

angel — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:06:14 +0000

Just thought and wonder of how many planets out in those distant galaxies have life, God is great indeed.

By: Neil Haggath

Neil Haggath — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:47:34 +0000

#30 Yeebok, #14 XMark:
NGC stands for New General Catalogue. It’s a catalogue compiled by J. L. E. Dreyer in the late 19th Century; it contains 7780 objects. And not only galaxies, though the majority are; it also contains gaseous and planetary nebulae, and star clusters. There are also another few thousand objects with “IC” numbers; this means Index Catalogue, which was a later supplement to the NGC.
As for the M numbers, Yeebok is quite right. Charles Messier was a comet hunter, and he compiled his list of “fuzzy” objects, which could be mistaken for comets, just so he wouldn’t mistake them! ( He observed with a small telescope in the 18th Century, so it was easy to “mistake” things which we never would today, with modern telescopes. ) Ironically, while he did discover 13 comets, he’s remembered for his list of objects in which he wasn’t interested!

By: Blaidd Drwg

Blaidd Drwg — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:39:04 +0000

Dr. Plait, a question: In the 4522 image, at the extreme lower right of the picture, there appears to be a galaxy that is distorted. Immediatley to the right of this galaxy is a star. Is this a case of gravitational lensing, or something else (like the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet)?

By: Yeebok Shu'in

Yeebok Shu'in — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:08:45 +0000

@XMark – yes, most things have the NGC and M names. If you blot out a patch of sky as large as your pinky you will cover an area many many times larger than is visible in the Hubble Deep Field pic. Many of them look very similar.
The “M” objects, were listed by a man named Charles Messier as things that “were not comets” – generally these are visible to the naked eye. Rather than giving them funky names, he just numbered them. He wrote the coordinates along with the number he’d catalogued it under. Over time people started to refer to things by their Messier number, as opposed to “the smaller smudge in the Southern Cross” (yes, I’m Aussie..). Messier’s objects include many types of things, from clusters to galaxies.
Other setups have done the same thing, but only shown one type of object – I may be wrong but I have NGC as for ‘new galactic catalogue’ – as a result the only things you’ll find in it are galaxies. They’re also numbered.. and yes, there’s thousands.
There are other catalogues and so on – generally astronomical people learn about the messier catalogue, and then NGC.
The galaxies and so forth do have ‘pretty names’ such as ‘the butterfly nebula’ – but there’s no guarantee that someone from a different cultural background would have the same name for the same object.
As a result for those slightly in the know the M numbers are most familiar, then the NGCs and so forth, so these types of names are what are used instead.
Jeez. That was gonna be short. Sorry man.

By: FaConti (faconti) 's status on Thursday, 01-Oct-09 09:19:20 UTC - Identi.ca

FaConti (faconti) 's status on Thursday, 01-Oct-09 09:19:20 UTC - Identi.ca — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:19:24 +0000

[...] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/09/30/two-hubble-stunners/ a few seconds ago from web [...]

By: website design

website design — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:49:54 +0000

Dont worry, you wont have to put up with crap like those pictures any more.

Bush decided itd be cool if got NASA to cut the funding for Hubble.

By: Randy

Randy — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 06:10:50 +0000

“Billions of Suns in this picture… which means trillions of planets. Chances of us being alone = slim to none.”

Yeah, but will they start selling those telescopes at Costco that automatically find each of them in the sky for you? That would be cool employment, just logging those algorithms, jamming to music…