[HN Gopher] 417-megapixel Andromeda galaxy panorama took over a ...
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417-megapixel Andromeda galaxy panorama took over a decade to make
Author : wallflower
Score : 281 points
Date : 2025-01-17 03:03 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (petapixel.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (petapixel.com)
| petee wrote:
| Why is it incomplete? I can't find an explanation on this or the
| NASA site linked from there; its an awfully big chunk missing
| nearly to the center
| Kye wrote:
| Speculating based on the sections:
|
| https://archive.stsci.edu/hlsp/phat
|
| https://archive.stsci.edu/hlsp/phast
|
| It took a decade to get that much. Getting the rest, assuming
| they aren't able to shrink the chunks, would require a project
| equal in duration and scope. The JWST can probably capture it
| with similar resolution in a fraction of the time. If the JWST
| didn't exist, they'd probably go for another project to fill in
| the gaps, but it doesn't make sense when a much better
| telescope is available.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The JWST and Hubble are two totally different telescopes in
| that Hubble is mainly visible light spectrum where JWST is
| totally IR spectrum. They can both take an image of the exact
| same object and the images will look different. They cannot
| use JWST to fill in the gaps of a Hubble project.
| Kye wrote:
| I didn't say anything about JWST filling in the gaps. I
| said it wouldn't make sense to do another project with
| Hubble to finish the image when it would take another
| decade. They can get a scientifically useful image from the
| missing spots in less time with the new telescope.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Don't need another decade. A few months to get some of
| the holes at the bottom.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| There's enough image there, just select the black and hit
| content aware fill.
| emeril wrote:
| too bad it's not optimized to view without loading the entire
| thing to memory...
| bhouston wrote:
| Yeah we need a Google maps like view.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Seems like there should be a library that does this fairly
| efficiently for ultra large images.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Not sure how many 417-megapixel images are out there where
| this would be something someone works on "over a weekend".
| We just need the right person to come along at the right
| time to think it would be a cool thing to do just because.
| abound wrote:
| I did some quick searching, this library seems like the
| best bet: https://github.com/openseadragon/openseadragon
| abound wrote:
| I hacked together a quick demo using that library on this
| image: https://andromeda.bsprague.com/
| qwertox wrote:
| Beautiful, thank you!
| danwills wrote:
| Thanks heaps!
| hatthew wrote:
| It's cool zooming in and seeing the moire patterns
| shimmer into view
| bhouston wrote:
| 417 megapixels image is really nice but it also something people
| on earth can at least approach. I did a 28 megapixel Andromeda
| galaxy shot myself without even resorting to mosaics:
|
| https://www.astrobin.com/hqrhe0/
|
| With a few changes I could have easily got somewhere around 100
| megapixels if I did a 2x2 mosaic without my reducer on the scope.
|
| There are better cameras and scopes (planewave scopes for
| example) that getting to 400 megapixel is totally achievable for
| a high end mature astrophotographer.
| JBorrow wrote:
| Astronomical seeing severely limits the efficacy of even multi-
| million dollar telescopes. The size of the pixels in this image
| is ~0.2 arcseconds, which is far below typical seeing limits
| even in excellent conditions.
| bhouston wrote:
| Excellent seeing on earth is typically 0.4 arcseconds, so
| close. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_seeing
|
| My setup gives me around 1.92 arc seconds for a point
| diameter.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| And you can do tricks such as lucky imaging or active
| optics (depending on your budget) to further improve the
| resulting resolution. Lucky imaging is tricky on something
| as dim as Andromeda, but has been shown to be just about
| possible.
| bhouston wrote:
| I haven't seen lucky imaging used on dim objects by
| anyone I know. I personally do not have a large enough
| aperture to collect enough light for that. But I've used
| it on bright planets before via AutoStakkert[1]:
| https://www.astrobin.com/full/06dzki/0/
|
| [1] https://www.autostakkert.com
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Lucky imaging was always a tool for use on planets and
| the moon. Anything bright.
|
| It's hard to do dim objects because there's less for the
| software to inspect in each frame to determine the
| luckiness and distortion, but you can maybe use
| fortuitous bright stars in the frame to index off. You
| also need to collect a huge number of images to get any
| sort of signal to noise ratio. This video is an example
| of the technique actually used on a dim object, though
| the results were fairly modest because of murky British
| skies.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s9xbZ5G-wk
| JBorrow wrote:
| That 'excellent seeing' is for sites that are chosen for
| telescopes. Typical seeing from sea level is much worse:
|
| -
| https://www.ing.iac.es/astronomy/development/hap/dimm.html
|
| - https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Fig-C1-Seeing-
| distributi...
|
| - https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/9/2225
|
| Around 1-2 arcseconds is 'good' seeing in your backyard.
| There is a good reason for telescopes to be on some of the
| tallest mountains on Earth.
| bdcravens wrote:
| > Since Andromeda is so large and relatively close, although
| still 2.5 million light-years away
|
| Considering those photons are 2.5 millions old, I'd say it took
| significantly more than a decade
|
| (I'll see myself out)
| 0_____0 wrote:
| From the photons' perspective it took no time at all!
| liamwire wrote:
| No luck catching them electrons, then? _It's just the one
| electron, actually._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe
| myko wrote:
| Is this a Hot Fuzz reference? Love that movie
| euroderf wrote:
| So from the photon's PoV, it is carrying state
| instantaneously across the entire universe. Weird.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| If the photon had a mind, this would make it go crazy.
| lousken wrote:
| where is FLIF when it's needed the most
| airstrike wrote:
| Obviously very cool, but I'm also curious what it can be used
| for, if any resident astrophysicists are reading this and can
| chime in...
| sen wrote:
| At first I thought that was camera noise when I zoomed in, and
| was wondering why it's so noisy... then realised that's all the
| stars. Insane.
| exodust wrote:
| Same. Every few years it seems I have to refresh certain
| astronomy facts in my mind. The obvious looking stars are in
| foreground, in our galaxy. The "noise" is what a trillion stars
| looks like at 2.5 million light years. Dear brain, remember
| this please.
| coro_1 wrote:
| Serious question: Is this what Hubble originally captured? Or
| unlike bodies in our solar system, maybe with a galaxy
| compositing isn't necessary?
| db48x wrote:
| What do you mean by "originally"? The cameras on Hubble are
| black and white, and this is a color image.
| kadoban wrote:
| It's ~never just the raw output of a sensor. Even your personal
| camera isn't much like that tbh. It's just a question of how
| much processing is done, and with an image like this, the
| answer is: quite a bit.
| Medox wrote:
| Mandatory recommendation of the Gigapixels of Andromeda [4K] [1]
| video/version. Especially with this particular song(!), as the 8K
| version [2] has a different one which doesn't really give the
| chills... Although, 60fps makes the image much better. Maybe
| combine the song from [1] with the video from [2]...
|
| The source picture is the 1.5 gigapixels version (69.536 x 22.230
| pixels).
|
| Fun fact: watching the video on certain TV's makes them flicker
| wildly. Probably because they struggle with many dots in motion.
| On a monitor it works flawlessly.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udAL48P5NJU
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9bNqBeAtC8
| archerx wrote:
| It's probably motion smoothing causing it to flicker on certain
| TVs. Why motion smoothing exists on TVs is another question. I
| guess some people want everything to look like a cheap soap
| opera.
| nixass wrote:
| These kind of videos are great but what makes them even better
| is background music selection. Videos like this (as well as
| astronomy related channels) are the main reason why my music
| taste shifted from mainstream to indie music makers like Carbon
| Based Lifeforms, Sync24, Pete Namlook, Solar Fields,
| Stellardrone, Cell.. to name few.
| radiorental wrote:
| Have loved some of those for years and never heard of others.
| Thanks for the recommendations and it sort of speaks to how
| special and unique they are (o;
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| If you can't reliably stream 4k or 8k 60fps, or even if you
| could and are stymied by Youtube compression (your 'smart TV'
| may be turning this incompressible video into meaningless
| snow), grab the source from the author as a download over
| Bittorent:
|
| https://daveachuk.gumroad.com/
| rezmason wrote:
| Usually that galaxy is moving over 4,000 miles per hour. With
| this photo evidence, we can now issue them a speeding ticket,
| we've got 'em dead to rights
| brudgers wrote:
| The speed limit is about 186,000 miles/second.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Not for astronomical objects. Their speed may be boosted by
| the expansion of space.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Yeah but good luck seeing them.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Well, let's imagine an object that has some Platonic
| motion of 0.2c directly away from us, but it's so far
| away that spatial expansion boosts its velocity to 1.1c.
|
| At time 0 it emits a photon toward us. One year later,
| it's 1.1 light years farther away. The amount of newly-
| created distance between us is 0.9 light years. Some of
| that was created behind the photon, but I'll ignore that
| and just assume that all of the new space got in the
| photon's way.
|
| Over that one year, the photon has traveled 1 light year
| towards us, and only 0.9 light years of that distance was
| new. So it's gotten closer to us by (a little more than)
| 0.1 light years. This rate will accelerate over time.
|
| The object is still visible at the point where it emitted
| that photon, even though its velocity exceeds the speed
| of light.
|
| I think it will ultimately become invisible, though.
| sebmellen wrote:
| depends on how you define speed, I suppose
| The_Colonel wrote:
| No, it's _you_ moving 4 000 miles per hour relative to the
| Andromeda galaxy.
| vivzkestrel wrote:
| AT 10 trillion kms = 1 light year, 10 quadrillion km = 1000 light
| years, 10 quintillion kms = 1 million light years. Since
| Andromeda galaxy is 2.5 million light years away, you are looking
| at an object 25 quintillion kms away. If that doesnt ring a bill,
| that is 25000 quadrillion kms away, 25 million trillion kms away!
| , 25 billion billion kms away!!! Simply put if you travelled 1
| billion kms that would be 0.000000004% of the way to reach
| Andromeda galaxy. Imagine that!
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Recreational mathematics, fun.
|
| And if we could see it with the naked eye it would appear six
| times bigger than a full moon.
| chgs wrote:
| It's about the width of three finders on an outstretched
| hand.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| It is visible to the naked eye in good locations and
| conditions, actually.
| divbzero wrote:
| And yet, Andromeda is the closest major galaxy to the Milky
| Way: next door neighbors in the small patch of the Universe
| known as the Local Group.
| vivzkestrel wrote:
| the further ones such as the cartwheel galaxy = 500 million
| light years = 5000 quintillion kms and hoag's object 600
| million light years at 6000 quintillion kms are unfathomable
| to like ever reach. Given a quintillion has 1 followed by 18
| zeroes, to cover 0.1% of a quintillion, we gotta travel 1
| quadrillion kms, how the hell do we ever do that
| timewizard wrote:
| > If that doesnt ring a bill
|
| That'll be 23 Zettameters, please.
| WA wrote:
| And even more: Every object you can see with the naked eye in
| the sky is within our milky way, except for the Andromeda
| galaxy and a handful of other galayies. If you know exactly
| where to look, you can see it as a little cloud with the naked
| eye.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_galaxies#Naked-eye_gal...
| xhrpost wrote:
| That led me down a bit of a rabbit hole and I found this
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_galaxy_groups_and_clus.
| ..
|
| So there are actually a few galaxies visible with the naked
| eye outside of our local group even. However, all are within
| our local supercluster.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Star Trek ships travel (very roughly) 1000x the speed of light
| at Warp 9. So it would take the Enterprise (or Voyager) 2500
| years to reach Andromeda at max speed.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I wonder if software can be put to it in order to plot every
| single star.
|
| I wonder if there were a way to eventually get a stereo image --
| depth data for each point of light so that we can map Andromeda
| in three dimensions.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Distance in space is difficult because a dim star could just be
| a smaller dim star that's close, or a larger bright star that's
| far away. We have to use a lot of clever tricks (standard
| candles paired with parallax calculations [1] in particular)
| just to get distances estimates. We can kind of do this for
| stars that are very close (relatively speaking), but at the
| scale of the universe - even measuring the distance to a
| distant galaxy has a substantial uncertainty factor, let alone
| the stars within that galaxy!
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_distance_ladder
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| No way to use the change in relative distance between the
| stars of Andromeda itself?
| Vampiero wrote:
| I guess we would need two telescopes very far apart in order to
| get stereo images?
|
| Wouldn't any two points converge at the horizon, considering
| the distances involved, otherwise?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Andromeda is a whole other beast, but I understand we've done
| something similar for bodies in our Milky Way using two ends
| of Earth's trip around the sun.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Or use the same telescope by taking images 6 months apart so
| the earth is in opposite position in its orbit
| sapiogram wrote:
| Yeah, Andromeda is way too far away. The Gaia mission was
| custom-built to do exactly this kind of "stereo" imaging of
| stars in our own galaxy, but it's still not sensitive enough
| to cover the entire Milky Way.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Anybody else fantasize about what life could be like there? Do
| you think some civilization there has taken a similar photo of
| our own galaxy?
| WhitneyLand wrote:
| Yes, immediately. Think of the stories all those lives could
| tell. It's awe inspiring and humbling.
| ggm wrote:
| I think it would help, if they selected a region where to 100 to
| 1000AU the density was similar to ours, and showed the night sky
| from a position orbiting a star of comparable size, and then
| somewhere of significantly higher density.
|
| I always assume that the levels of radiation closer to the
| galactic core are worse but so would insolation in the wider
| sense: the star field would be dense enough to illuminate more
| than the milky way does, for us surely?
| bung wrote:
| Would love a version with the largest rectangle possible without
| the black/missing bits
| hyperific wrote:
| It'd be interesting to see an overlay showing images by their
| age.
| divbzero wrote:
| The article mentions that the galaxy is a big target for Hubble
| to image but doesn't specify exactly how large: Andromeda
| stretches 3deg across our sky compared to our Moon's apparent
| diameter of 0.5deg. It would be quite a sight to behold if it
| were bright enough to see by naked eye.
| nejsjsjsbsb wrote:
| Is it not (assume no light pollution)
| AngryData wrote:
| It is visible if you know where to look, but still not
| exactly the easiest thing to discern since it is just a fuzzy
| patch to the naked eye.
| jajko wrote:
| I've seen it very clearly with my naked eyes in Argentina.
| One prerequisite though - it was 5500m high on Aconcagua
| camp (we camped also in 6000m but sky was the last thing I
| was concerned about there). Any decent mountain ie in
| European alps will give you massively starry night if sky
| is clear, but that place was a notch above.
|
| Those few unfortunates who died on 8000m peaks by ie
| getting lost and had the chance to see a starry night must
| have seen quite a spectacle.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| It's not so much the altitude that gives you a clear view
| (although that also helps), but the lack of nearby light
| pollution and lack of clouds. The European Alps are lit
| up like a Christmas tree and in most places will not give
| a spectacular view of the night sky. Western Europe is
| just a bit too highly populated for good easy astronomy.
| nejsjsjsbsb wrote:
| Rural Queensland Australia was amazing and my best views
| of the milky way. It is something else. There is a lot
| out there!
| mnw21cam wrote:
| The southern hemisphere has more bright interesting stuff
| (including the centre of the milky way) than the northern
| hemisphere.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| The easiest way to see it is with averted vision (looking
| slightly away from Andromeda, so that it falls on the most
| sensitive part of your retina). Unfortunately, though, with
| the naked eye, it just looks like a faint smudge.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Funny how come the original post by NASA was seen be fewer people
| here on HN:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42731686
|
| I guess it has to do with the time and day of posting something,
| on how much it will be upvoted and hopefully rise out of the new
| posts pit :-)
| sabellito wrote:
| Thanks for this, couldn't access this posts link because of
| this:
|
| > We value your privacy
|
| > With your permission we and our partners may use precise
| geolocation data and identification through device scanning.
| You may click to consent to our and our 1464 partners'
| processing as described above.
|
| No reject all button.
| kuschku wrote:
| Weird, I only have to click:
|
| 1. Reject all
|
| 2. Legitimate Interest
|
| 3. Object all
|
| 4. Save & Exit
|
| But then I'm in EU
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I don't have to click anything. uBlock nuked 26 elements,
| EFF PrivacyBadger reports 14 trackers blocked, and Ghostery
| NeverConsent blocked the InMobi cookie popup entirely.
| jimmySixDOF wrote:
| And in related news the ESA's Gaia spatial mapping L2 Satellite
| is just about to run out of Gas [1] after some amazing work much
| of which can be seen in VR for the real 3D treatment [2]
|
| https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/esa-spa...
|
| https://zah.uni-heidelberg.de/gaia/outreach/gaiasky
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| I've never seen Andromeda, even when I was in a deep dark sky
| area and could remember where to look. This [1] NASA picture of
| the day shows, enhanced to be visible, just how big it actually
| is in the night sky.
|
| [1] https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap201125.html
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I'm still having a hard time: It's difficult to tell the camera
| FOV.
|
| I looked it up: it's 1/4 of a degree. The sun and moon are each
| 1/2 a degree.
|
| So, Andromeda appears half (diameter) of the sun or moon.
| jeffbradberry wrote:
| That is not accurate -- the Andromeda Galaxy is over 3
| degrees wide. About 6 full moons.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Thanks for the correction!
| queuebert wrote:
| And getting bigger, as it is moving toward us on a
| collision course.
| wongogue wrote:
| Did you ask an AI?
| dylan604 wrote:
| The first time I imaged Andromeda was a total accident. I was
| shooting a timelapse with a wide angle, and I kept seeing this
| fuzzy patch in the images. It was one of those "oh neat"
| moments.
| donutdan4114 wrote:
| Zoomable: https://esahubble.org/images/heic1502a/zoomable/
| celeritascelery wrote:
| I love seeing photos like this, and assumed that you would need
| the Hubble to capture pictures of space this good. But I have
| been following Andrew McCarthy [1] on twitter and am amazed at
| how good of pictures you can get with a backyard telescope.
|
| [1] https://x.com/ajamesmccarthy/status/1876658931717832938
| torcete wrote:
| When I see these pictures, as impressive as they are, I wonder
| what kind of scientific facts can the astronomers extract from
| them.
|
| With my layman's eyes, it is very clear that there is a dense
| galactic center and dust clouds between the galaxy and us.
| However, What else can an expert eye tell from the picture?
| deanCommie wrote:
| Plenty. What looks like generic dots to us laymen are actually
| different types of stars. With more resolution, astronomers can
| more accurately categorize the different stars in the galaxy.
| The ratios of different stars tell us things about the
| universe.
|
| With better high resolution images recently we've also been
| able to see confirmation of Gravitational Lensing [0] which
| reveal superstructures in space-time that affect the images we
| see. (i.e. with lower resolution we might've assumed we're
| seeing multiple distinct stars, with better resolution we
| understand that it's the same)
|
| For example, we just discovered the first "Einstein Zig Zag".
| [1]
|
| Ultimately, understanding the gravitational structure of space-
| time is the key to understanding dark matter which is arguably
| the biggest mystery of the universe today (besides dark
| energy).
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens
|
| [1] https://www.space.com/first-einstein-zig-zag-jwst
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