Via Phil Plait (aka the Bad Astronomer), this gorgeous view:
This picture of the active galaxy Centaurus A was made by Rolf Olsen, an amateur astronomer in New Zealand. I can’t do better than Plait does in explaining why this sight is not simply beautiful, but astonishing:
The detail is amazing, and you really seriously want to embiggen it; I had to shrink it a lot to fit it on the blog. Going over the details at Olsen’s site just amazed me more and more.
First and foremost: He took these images with a 25 cm (10”) telescope that he made himself. That’s incredible. A ‘scope that small is not one you’d think you could get this kind of image with, but persistence pays off. It took a total of 43 nights across February to May of 2013 to pull this picture off.
Centaurus A is a very interesting object — the product of galaxies in collision, it has a massive black hole gobbling up stuff in its center. As Plait notes (with awe!), Olsen with his very modest-sized home-made telescope was able to resolve the tell tale jets that the black hole produces (see Plait’s piece for the close – ups). I’ve done a little bit of star gazing, and I worked with Tim Ferris on the development of his Seeing in the Dark film — a kind of love note to the amateur astronomer community, so I have some sense of the skill and sheer stamina of those folks who spend night after night staring up. And even with that as context, I can say that what Olsen does here is truly impressive.
So enjoy. Stare at that image (do hit the link for the big version — and check out Olsen’s gallery). Note that in the shock of collision you likely get ramped-up star formation. In star formation, you get planets. With enough heavy elements (i.e., enough generations of stars aborning and flaming out), you get the basic chemistry of life. Not saying there’s anyone looking back…but (allowing for the time lag) you never know.
Consider this a cosmic open thread.
Image: Rolf Olsen, 2013, used by permission.
schrodinger's cat
That is awesome. Thanks for sharing, I am checking out his website.
Yatsuno
It seems like the best discoveries these days are coming from the amateur astronomers and such. I’m certian that any SETI discovery will come from some kid in Nunavut who just happened to get his antenna in the right position at the right time.
Tom Levenson
@Yatsuno: Nah. What the pros are doing is fabulous. I’m a day late and a dollar short, but I’ve got a longish post to come on the results from the Planck satellite that form one of the truly great cultural attainments in human history. I’m not exaggerating. The amateurs do great stuff. But don’t dismiss what the folks with the really big toys are pulling off either.
schrodinger's cat
You know what is not awesome, Friedman and his latest column, he makes my head hurt with his leaps of logic.
schrodinger's cat
@Tom Levenson: How is Tikka? Keeping you on your toes?
Tom Levenson
@schrodinger’s cat: Tough as ever. Will post pix
Linda Featheringill
Lovely picture. We really are a part of an awesome universe, aren’t we?
cathyx
What does an active galaxy mean? Does it have life?
schrodinger's cat
@Yatsuno: You too can run SETI@home. Their server seems to be down right now.
Tom Levenson
@cathyx: Nah. Here’s Phil Plait’s one sentence definition:
Should have mentioned that explicitly above.
schrodinger's cat
Is it me or does the stellar formation bear a striking resemblance to Tunch kitteh in the yard of two days ago?
Trollhattan
Wow, 120 hours total exposure and a homemade 10-inch telescope. Guy is persistent and crazy talented.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Well it’s official: I’ve been hired. Unless the Chinese bureaucracy screws up my visa application I’ll be teaching accounting in Xi’an for five weeks this summer.
Everyone else seems more excited that I’m going to China than I am. I wish the job were here.
raven
And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garrrrrrrrden. . .
schrodinger's cat
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Congratulations! You should blog about your experience in China.
The Other Bob
On a more depressing note, I tend to imagine those black holes gobbling up planets and imagine those planets have full civilizations on them. Scary stuff.
Baud
Beautiful, but does that galaxy have cats?!
Villago Delenda Est
The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we CAN imagine..
Villago Delenda Est
@The Other Bob:
None of those civilizations are made up of REAL MURICANS, so it’s no big deal.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@The Other Bob: Centuries before they’re gobbled up by the black hole, the civilizations were wiped out by the intense radiation. Gravity may be a harsh mistress but sometimes she’s too slow on the draw.
Librarian
Actually, it looks like a galaxy with a giant moustache.
schrodinger's cat
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Thanks for the thoughtful comment on my itteh bitteh blog.
mdblanche
Chris Christie is not, repeat not, running for President.
Citizen_X
@Baud:
Ceiling cat made kitteh in His own imij, evrywheres. So yeh.
moderateindy
And imagine all that is only like what 7-8000 years old! And the FSM made all that, and only felt the need to have one planet with life on it, and for the first 5000 years he decided to only reveal himself to a chosen few, until of course he changed his mind, or did he plan doing it that way all aong? what with being omniscient and all. Oh I’m sorry, that’s right he simply wanted everyone to know about his boy Jeebus, who is somehow also him as well as the Holy Spirit which is …………wait I’m getting confused again,….. no no no I keep forgetting the universal truth brought to us in the 70’s by Schoolhouse Rock. 3 is a magic number.
http://youtu.be/LVfe6rdHRKI
Baud
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s hard to believe since I can imagine Republicans.
Yatsuno
@Tom Levenson: Oh no doubt the pros do some neat stuff for sure. But the guys and gals doing this on the weekend are definitely making amazing contributions as well. What’s really nifty is how collaborative it all is. There seem to be few turf wars involved.
gogol's wife
I’m going to be at MIT this weekend. I looked up your picture so that if I see you I can give you the secret Tunch handshake.
gogol's wife
@Baud:
There have been a few mistakes in the cosmic plan.
schrodinger's cat
@gogol’s wife: You mean offer him a floofy paw shake.
gogol's wife
@schrodinger’s cat:
yes, I guess that’s more accurate.
R-Jud
@Baud:
It did– until someone set them up the bomb.
mdblanche
Tonight is the 100th anniversary of the first performance of “The Rite of Spring.” Supposedly it was Nijinsky’s choreography that really set off the rioting at the premiere.
Bill Arnold
@moderateindy:
Nah, didn’t bother actually making anything that far out (or anything further out than about max_age/2, or less). Just made the photons, all cunningly arranged to look like they came from far far away, to cause doubt.
Of course, we don’t actually know what the FSM would consider lazy. Maybe it is easier to simply make the entire universe.
Galaxy cluster creation might have desired side effects, like beer, or Republicans, or bumblebees, or pasta, or something.
Emma
That is just exquisite. Awefull, in the old sense of the word.
Southern Beale
Dumbfuck CCW holder brings a gun loaded with HOLLOW POINT BULLETS to Disney World. Damn thing falls out of his pocket on the Dinosaur ride and this idiot didn’t even know it was gone! Found by a guest — little boy’s grandma, who turned it over to park officials.
IDIOT!
Gin & Tonic
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I’m vicariously excited because Western Chinese food is very good, and very different from what most people here have been exposed to (unless they are in or near a very large city, e.g. NYC)
Emma
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Think of it as a fantastic gift. Immersing yourself in another culture, learning all you can…. I am envious. Set up a blog and let us know all about it (good, bad, awesome, ugly)!
Ted & Hellen
And the best part of this PICTURE is that it is not at all photoshopped, colorized, or otherwise manipulated/created/tweaked to suit the creator’s imaginings. This is EXACTLY what the object looks like if one were observing it from the perspective as presented in the PICTURE.
Note the Disney pink, blue, and yellow twinklers surrounding that mean black hole. This is PRECISELY what this area of space looks like. It is not the least bit enhanced for the benefit of public relations and salesmanship.
AWESOME and real, and not at all imagined. This is JUST exactly what it looks like.
Gin & Tonic
@Ted & Hellen: Oh, wow. This again?
Villago Delenda Est
@Ted & Hellen:
Racist fucktard lets us know about his expertise in photography, again.
There has got to be a fire with your name on it, somewhere. Please find it and die in it. Thank you.
Trollhattan
@Ted & Hellen:
Iz somebody having an existential crisis? They Nietzsche in back to change out the fryer oil.
Chyron HR
@Gin & Tonic:
You’ll have to excuse Timmy. He saw Neil deGrasse Tyson on TV once, and since then nobody’s been able to convince him that the N in NASA doesn’t stand for “nigger”.
Ted & Hellen
@Chyron HR:
Your comments, as per usual, say so very much more about you than me.
Continue, please.
lamh35
Something for the fellas. Who do you think is the BEST martial artist living or not, that isn’t Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan or Jet Li? My money’s on Tony Jaa, and all but the biggest martial arts fans probably know who he is. For this one shot take alone, Tony Jaa has to be number one right?
Tony Jaa – One Shot
As for female martial artist: I have a soft spot in my heart for Michelle Yeoh (she’ 49!!! people):
Michelle Yeoh vs Ziyi Zhang – “Crouching Tiger….”
Ted & Hellen
@Chyron HR:
You enjoy saying the N word, don’t you. Any excuse, obviously, will do. Unsurprising.
Amir Khalid
@Ted & Hellen:
Sayeth he that for a living draweth caricatures.
scav
If it weren’t for the pontificating about lightwave manipulation, deliberate racism and other random poo-flinging, T&H would only be recognized by its dogs and they’re in it for the kibbles.
Yatsuno
@Ted & Hellen: BWAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh you are just soooo totes adorbs Special Timmeh!
JoyfulA
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Cool! A colleague’s going to be teaching at a Chinese medical school this summer. She’s done work for several of the staff, and she was startled when the facility decided they all wanted to learn from her.
(But I, too, would rather stay put here in my home office and avoid the airports and airplanes, etc.)
pokeyblow
A universe beyond imagination, an inconceivable combination of space and time, an incalculably improbable emergence of intelligent life, language, symbols, and shareable ideas. The whole business a delightful impossibility.
And, instead of thinking about all that, so many just prefer to be big assholes on the internet.
Yatsuno
@Amir Khalid: An unpleasant truth? Special Timmeh projects like a.multiplex.
sharl
Tom Levenson addressed the issue of astronomic imagery in fine fashion already.
Let the troll troll away to its trollheart’s content on this matter. God invented such things as the scroll wheel and window drag-down technologies for this very purpose. Their use seems highly recommended in this situation (and many others!).
SatanicPanic
@Amir Khalid: You beat me to it!
evodevo
Whoa! Is that the Crab Leg nebula, or what!
Dee Loralei
That picture is amazing, especially since he did it with a homemade telescope.
Please tell me that’s not known as The Friedman Galaxy by its inhabitants.
ranchandsyrup
Awesome pic.
Now I have Moby’s We Are All Made of Stars in my head and I’m seriously considering braining myself with the stapler. It’s a swingline so you know it’s good.
Ted & Hellen
@Amir Khalid: @Amir Khalid:
I do indeed, and make a fine living in the effort. What I do NOT do, however, is present my scratchings as PHOTOGRAPHS objectively representing the actual, material subject.
Can you grasp the difference, feeble one?
Trollhattan
@ranchandsyrup:
Red Swingline?
dmsilev
@Ted & Hellen: I’ll repeat what I said the last time you brought this up: You are a moron.
For homework, explain how a monochromatic light sensor of the sort found on a digital camera can be used to create color images.
ranchandsyrup
@Trollhattan: You know it. But…. I’m gonna blow up the entire building. And.. weaken the structure.
Yatsuno
@dmsilev: Magic. Duh.
HumboldtBlue
Having gotten 150 pages into the “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” and having spent the past four years trying to gather even a simple explanation of the cosmos I am now the proud owner of the HumboldtBlue Associate Degree in NOT HAVING PAID CLOSE ENOUGH ATTENTION TO BASIC MATH AND SCIENCE CLASSES WHEN I WAS A STUPID FUCKING KID.
Instead of honors garlands and your basic graduation cap. my degree comes replete with a motherfucking garden hoe and a large plastic trash bag.
dmsilev
@Yatsuno: Close. Elves. Small elves who are moonlighting when they get off shift at the Keebler works.
rikyrah
BEAUTIFUL
Yatsuno
@dmsilev: I assume the underpants gnomes is also an acceptable answer.
dmsilev
@Yatsuno: Always.
Villago Delenda Est
@dmsilev:
Counsel for Moron Defamation League on line two.
Baud
@Villago Delenda Est:
Ahem. That’s Moran Defamation League.
scav
@dmsilev: Well, moonlighting at least explains their doing all this freelance astronomy. Imagine the gain in sensitivity if we could close down all cookie production monthly so they could do newmoonlighting.
dmsilev
@Villago Delenda Est: Moron Anti-Defamation League, surely? Or maybe not; that’s the sort of mistake you could see a moron making…
(sorry)
Higgs Boson's Mate
@ranchandsyrup:
Stay your hand. Instead listen to Quicksilver Messenger Service performing “Mona” live way back in 1969. Maybe the best live recording of the band evar.
Trollhattan
@ranchandsyrup:
Uh, yeah, we’ll need those TPS reports first. You can work over the weekend, right?
Unfinished bidnez–wha’ppen with the water heater flood?
Trollhattan
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Great version; still have my “Happy Trails” LP. Never saw Quicksilver but did see Copperhead, Cipollina’s next band, and also with the Welsh band, Man. Dude could play some guitar.
pokeyblow
Can I make love to you once in a while?
C Nelson Reilly
@lamh35: Chuck Norris is the greatest living martial artist.
ranchandsyrup
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Heh, thanks for the reco. That is a good one and I feel better. There’s a reason we don’t hear from Moby any more.
@Trollhattan: Had to redo some drywall and toss some bankers boxes full of waterlogged docs but all in all not so bad. New hot water heater kicks some serious ass so I’m calling it a win. Thx for asking.
Amir Khalid
@Ted & Hellen:
Contrary to your implied claim, photographs are not objectively accurate depictions of reality. A photographer adjusts parameters like light, contrast, colour intensity and balance; picks an angle to shoot from (if he has a choice); etc. And these choices all affect the final image. Colour is recreated in photographs, not recorded — by chemical means in film photography, by electronic means in digital photography.
The false colour applied to photos like this one is not a plot to misrepresent what’s out in space. (What would be the motive for such a plot, anyway?) The photo was taken with light from outside the visible spectrum, and false colour is the way to reveal features that can’t otherwise be seen. Scientific discovery is why people take these pictures, after all.
But dmsilev is right. You are a moron. I’d only add, willfully so.
scuffletuffle
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Yay, yes, please keep us in the loop. I hope that you can relax enough to enjoy the experience, in spite of the many challenges that will surely come with the opportunity.
Amir Khalid
@C Nelson Reilly:
But Michelle Yeoh is a better actor, and better looking too. I wish I could say I liked her politics; alas, she endorsed Barisan Nasional in the general election.
dmsilev
@Amir Khalid: Let me nitpick slightly one thing you said.
Looking at the details of how this picture was taken, the color filters chosen are a set designed to map to the human color perception range. In other words, this *is* how that galaxy would look to the naked eye, assuming that the naked eye could integrate photons for a hundred hours straight while maintaining pixel-level alignment on the field of view. Not to say that false color representations of UV/IR/etc isn’t a valuable tool, just that it wasn’t used in this case.
Amir Khalid
@dmsilev:
I stand corrected.
ruemara
@Amir Khalid: I can attest to the fact that photography is not an accurate representation of the world. Not sure why an artist would be so…upset at an artist’s reproduction, particularly when there is an effort to be as accurate as possible based on real data.
Mark S.
@Tom Levenson:
This?
Planck Space Data Yields Evidence of Universes Beyond Our Own
That’d be pretty fucking big.
sparrow
@cathyx: OMG OMG OMG, someone asked a question about active galaxies, which was… my thesis topic (I’m a PhD Astrophysicist)… on balloon juice? I love Tom, that’s all I gotta say.
To the point: an ‘active’ galaxy just means that it has an actively accreting supermassive black hole at the center. When those things suck in matter, it forms an accretion disk which gets VERY hot and very bright. This ionizing radiation (plus some from the jets, if they’re there) then ionizes clouds of dust and gas moving around the black hole very fast, which produces emission lines.
Thus, the first ‘active’ galaxies were just normal galaxies that people were studying that seemed oddly bright in the center and had these really, really weird emission lines. So ‘active’ meant that such broad, bright lines = something is going on here!
sparrow
@Yatsuno: Yeah it is embarassing to admit, but even though I’m a pro, I don’t do this stuff at home and basically haven’t handled a telescope since I last taught a lab course in grad school. :( The ‘amateurs’ are amazing at what they do, I’m constantly impressed.
Forum Transmitted Disease
My stepfather and I have have been doing exactly this sort of photography. These results are incredible. Ours…well, they don’t look that good, yet. Thermal noise and vibration. We’re getting there, though.
I’d tell Special Timmeh how it’s done, but truth is I like him stupid.
dopey-o
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): job? job in china? job anywhere? how can I get one? submit link thingy, please.
Uncle Cosmo
@sparrow: Greetings from an unfrocked astrophysicist-wannabe–a bit over 40 years back I got as far as an invite from Carl Sagan to the graduate program at Cornell & a year “far above Cayuga’s waters” before the department lost 10% of its student stipend funding & I was gone with the solar wind..
My undergraduate course in Astrophysics required a short research paper (really just an exercise in journal-plundering) over winter break as entree to the second semester. My effort was titled “‘Now Let’s Draw A Straight LIne Through These Points'” & it was all about Seyfert galaxies. I dimly remember that the “straight line” was on a graph showing all sorts of active galaxies on to quasars, probably absolute luminosity vs z. One seemed to be able to run a straight line through the scatterplot & I pointed out that were this valid, it implied they might all be manifestations of the same phenomenon (whatever that was–no one was at all sure at the time). Not exactly news now but heady stuff for 1970, wot? (What bummed me more than anything was that the stickinthemud prof only gave me an 85 on the paper–& when I asked where I had lost the 15 points, lamely replied that everyone else had done worse….)
Uncle Cosmo
@Toad & Hell-Hen: Fascinating–you are not only an utter fuckwit on matters political but you have expanded your fuckwittedness to astrophotography as well! I look forward with barely restrained glee to your demonstrating utter fuckwittery in the hundreds of other fields of human endeavor remaining!
BTW, has anyone mentioned to you lately that you are the second most egregious waste of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, trace elements & energy on this planet–& second only so long as Rush Limbaugh waddles among us?
schrodinger's cat
@sparrow: Can you suggest a good undergraduate (at the level of say Griffiths of Electrodynamics) text book for Astrophysics?
Redshirt
“Star stuff” sounds so New Agey, but that it is quite literally true is so amazing it really should be preached. We are obviously made up of the same stuff which makes up the Earth, the Sun, the galaxies and so on. We’re matter and energy, using science to understand matter and energy. As Carl said, “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”
All life, that is.
dmsilev
@Uncle Cosmo:
I can beat that: when I was taking Quantum in grad school, the final was an absolute bear of an exam; class average of something like 200 out of a possible 600 points. Except for one of my classmates, who was just an absolute machine at solving such problems; he’d take one look at the question and just start writing the solution. Anyway, he got 599 out of 600. The professor took off one point “for elegance”.
sparrow
@schrodinger’s cat: well, that’s a tough one. Frank Shu’s book is amazing, but it hasn’t been updated in a long while. It’s very much aimed at getting the physical intuition right and seeing the big picture. Otherwise, I’ve taught from one of those Pearsons publishers books that tries to sell you ready-made lectures (not my choice) and was very unimpressed. Of course my favorite general astro book is by Caroll and Ostley ( one’s dead now, but the book is more recent than Shu’s), it would be at the upper undergrad level. Though it is thick as a brick it is pleasantly readable. I think I would go with that one. You might be able to snag a copy at your library – its the big orange book. It sits on the shelves for more than a few of my colleagues even now!
sparrow
@schrodinger’s cat: well, that’s a tough one. Frank Shu’s book is amazing, but it hasn’t been updated in a long while. It’s very much aimed at getting the physical intuition right and seeing the big picture. Otherwise, I’ve taught from one of those Pearsons publishers books that tries to sell you ready-made lectures (not my choice) and was very unimpressed. Of course my favorite general astro book is by Caroll and Ostley ( one’s dead now, but the book is more recent than Shu’s), it would be at the upper undergrad level. Though it is thick as a brick it is pleasantly readable. I think I would go with that one. You might be able to snag a copy at your library – its the big orange book. It sits on the shelves for more than a few of my colleagues even now!
sparrow
ugh, sorry for the dupes. My IPAD claimed they didn’t go through
sparrow
@Uncle Cosmo: greetings! Yes, Seyferts and quasars are indeed the same phenomenon on different scales (meaning, active galaxies without jets) — so you win in the end. :) You should try to find a copy of that paper!
Uncle Cosmo
@sparrow: Aw, ’tweren’t much. Lazy barstid that I was, I ran across a whole slew of papers in I think it was the A.J. (or maybe Ap.J.) that came out of a then-recent conference on Seyferts & all I had to do was quote, footnote & stitch the quotes together with some minimal verbiage–think ground meat + breadcrumbs => meatballs. More work in those pre-WP & -download days but still.
But I do think I saw the paper as I was rescuing memorabilia from my mother’s basement after the overflow tank burst last year. So maybe it’s in one of the unopened boxes in my own basement now.
If we ever end up at the same BJ meetup, remind me to tell you about that year in grad school–no one it his/her right mind would believe all the things that went horribly wrong but you would at least understand what I describe…
Uncle Cosmo
@sparrow: And fumbling around the Net I discover that the papers in question came from a conference at the University of Arizona in early 1968 & were published in the A.J. that November. The only entry I remember at all was one by Barnothy & Barnothy out of U. Ill.(NB what is it about astronomy that produces husband & wife teams? Long nights at the observatory??) in which they proposed that the bright cores of Seyferts were in fact the images of much more distant quasars superimposed over the cores by gravitational lensing. Neither the physics nor the statistics held up, IMHO…but whenever I’ve heard gravitational lensing mentioned I’d remember those names.
sparrow
@Uncle Cosmo: LOL. I don’t know if you’re still readin this, but… there are actually a huge number of husband and wife teams, it’s true. I think it’s similar to how doctors always end up marrying each other — no one else understands your life very well! I never thought I would date another astronomer, but it’s been 3 years + now so go figure. I think another reason is that women are much better represented in astronomy than say physics, so it could just be probability. I also think (and this is contentious, but I’m a woman so I’ll put it out there) that women who are in relationships with older male astronomers (which is very much the norm in astro couples) benefit from additional mentoring (and perhaps pairs just get more astronomy done), while single women get average or perhaps below-average mentoring (there’s studies showing the latter, not the former) and I’ve wondered if there is a selection effect there…
Uncle Cosmo
@sparrow: Just dropped back in, small bird.
IMO most of your points are spot on. In particular I’d guess that astronomy was a lot more open to women until fairly recently because it didn’t involve dangerous or smelly apparatus (working with which would have been discouraged from an early age as “unladylike”). And beyond that it’s simply opportunity & similarity of experience–meeting your soulmate via singles bars or online dating tends not to be high on the agenda when you’re busting butt to get that degree or scrambling for a leg up on the greased Cassegranian of the profession–& as you say, how ya gonna work synchrotron radiation or convective transfer into a romantic evening with anyone else unless you’re Sagan on crack? (Though I think Jamie Lee Curtis in A Fish Called Wanda might’ve found John Cleese even sexier had he whispered words like Bremsstrahlung to her in the [Coal]sack….:D)
(Just FTR, & not that I am in any way encouraging this, if AstroGuy ever goes electron-degenerate in the core & stops proton-protoning, point that dish on this left-ascension & inclination ;) & squirt a we-come-in-peace-for-all-mankind in my direction. I may be old & gray but I loves me some tech talk…)