What is Digg?22 Comments
- k7jeb, on 04/24/2008, -0/+5Nice trick putting a 'switch' on the stars. It does give one an idea of just how large the hydrogen regions are.
- laserblazer, on 04/24/2008, -0/+4Let's face it - the algorithm is whoever is working at the time.
- PJ1967, on 04/24/2008, -0/+4"In the constellation of Cygnus, there lurks a mysterious invisible force..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3FzGAy1gck - Aeroslin, on 04/24/2008, -0/+4Those H-Alpha filters are expensive but obviously worth the purchase. Think of it as viewing the universe through rose-colored glasses.
- Benno, on 04/24/2008, -0/+3Cygnus ... Vismund Cygnus
- pixelguru, on 04/24/2008, -0/+3My god, it's full of...
no, wait. - mrtword, on 04/24/2008, -0/+2We will call you Cygnus, the god of balance you shall be
- twertyto, on 04/24/2008, -0/+2That's actually not correct. Hydrogen is red because it has an emission line at 656.3 nm which is red light and in general longer wavelengths of light have a poor resolution than short wavelengths like blue or UV. If you did the same picture with some of the higher transitions of the Balmer series then you could produce better detail though the stars may start to show up in the image.
- MaidMirawyn, on 04/24/2008, -0/+2That is gorgeous! I love the beautiful reds.
- billiamboy, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1looks like an awesome explosion if you look at it right
- Sikarian, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1You see, major car manufacturers? Hydrogen cells are the way to go! Get your asses in space and harvest.
- TripinVA, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1I was hoping someone would post about this. =)
- twertyto, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1I don't think the story explains the picture very well. Hot gas produces emission lines mainly from hydrogen since that is the major constituent of the gas. Stars on the other hand produce light at all wavelengths because they are very hot but since they have a relatively cool atmosphere the hydrogen atoms instead produce absorption lines in the stellar spectra. Hot gas therefore looks bright when you just look at that 656.3 nm wavelength but stars which are much brighter in general look faint at that wavelength. Faint enough that they don't show up in the image.
- Cygnus, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1I Digg it
- snds, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1Thanks for the corrections. Keep in mind, I found this out from a TV show so they have it watered down and probably somewhat innacurate to reality for the general public. =P
- HiddenCanuck, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1I'm sure the sacrifice of Old B.O.B. in his brutal takedown of Maximilian will be remembered for generations to come.
no one? Cygnus? - yooblonder, on 04/25/2008, -0/+0Cleverly done.
- igorfp, on 04/24/2008, -1/+1Magnificient image!!!
- easyxluckyxfree, on 04/24/2008, -0/+0exactly what i was thinking
- einstevo, on 04/24/2008, -0/+0that's a good clarification but i think you misspoke slightly. It's true that stellar photospheres produce blackbody continua and their atmospheres superimpose both line and continuum opacities on top of that to produce the final spectrum that we observe. However, the atmospheres don't cause the absorption lines simply because the gas is cool. The gas is actually not very cool. The effective temperature of the sun's photosphere is 5700K, yet there are absorption lines. If we had gas sitting around at 5700K it'd be line and continuum emitting like crazy. The absorption lines come from the fact that you have a low density gas in front of a very bright source. The gas absorbs at the transition wavelength along the line of sight, but reemits in the transition wavelength isotropically.
- snds, on 04/24/2008, -3/+0I saw something about this on "The Universe" on The History Channel. The filters they capture the images with are polarized and are color calibrated to show certain elements. This works because elements like hydrogen have a wavelength that allows them to be seen using a specific color (http://members.misty.com/don/spectra.gif; hydrogen is red because the red wavelength is broader and supplies the most detail).
Elemental spectrometery is pretty amazing especially when applied to astronomic research. We can see things that we have never been able to see through normal visible spectrum imagery. When you see those vibrant multicolored versions of nebulae you are actually seeing multiple versions of these elementally filtered images merged together in photoshop to give a better idea of what the nebula looks like in our visible spectrum. In the end it helps scientists find out what kind of volumes of elements are in certain spacial phenomenon. - danielcmetz, on 04/24/2008, -9/+237 diggs on the front page? Apparently the algorithm was intimidated by the .gov.
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