It does make you wonder...

[bigfoot3000]

Breathtaking and thought provoking?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bJ5Mg4b_1I&feature=related

The universe.

[Garmard]

We haven't lived have we.......Truly awe inspiring.

[bigfoot3000]

Indeed garmard, Id love to get a projector with this video and others and aim it at my ceiling and just kick back with a drink and friends and ponder our mortality.

[naomi24]

Thanks for posting that, Bigfoot. I have insufficient words to describe the beauty and the majesty of that - but when you say 'it does make you wonder' - I'd be more inclined to say it confirms my suspicions that the cruel and petty minded psychopathic God that people allow to control their minds and lives on this planet cannot possibly be responsible for such breathtaking magnificence. If there is a God, it has to be something far greater than him.

[Ankou]

it is amazing.
if you look close enough at picture 8, you can definitely see the face of jesus !!

[flobadob]

Most of those pictures of space have the colours added in to reflect temperature and if you were looking with your naked eye it would just be black and stars like a night sky.

[bigfoot3000]

Flobadob so you're saying that all the planets,matter, anti matter, stars, gases etc..are all one colour?

[flobadob]

Not planets, but I mean those pictures of big purple, red, blue etc. gas clouds. That's not real, it's temperature based. They look cool but.

[bigfoot3000]

This site amongst others say that they're coloured. http://www.seasky.org...-objects/nebulae.html

[bigfoot3000]

Here's an interesting article flobadob. http://www.thefreelib...+of+space-a0191014696

[birdie1971]

Some of these images are beautiful but as flobadob rightly points out, some of them have been enhanced considerably. That's entirely forgiveable.

What's not so forgiveable is the deliberate insertion of completely fake images into the sequence.

I stopped watching it after about 4 minutes because of the number of non-photographic images it contained.

For example:

2:50 - Painting/CGI of a planet and an attendant moon;
3:32 - CGI of the international space station;
3:42 - Painting/CGI of a man made satellite complete with a lens flare effect;
4:00 - Painting/CGI of a colossal collision between two large celestial objects.


Why drop these fake images into a video which purports to be a collection of actual photographs?

The universe is breathtaking enough. There's no need to fake it.

[bigfoot3000]

So birdie so they are enhanced, does this mean that what we see as green, blue etc.. are actually that color to a degree?
Im mesmerized especially by the infamous "Pillars of creation" http://scienceblogs.c...rs-of-Creation_sm.jpg

[birdie1971]

They're not always enhanced by simply 'turning up' the colour saturation. Quite a few of these images are of expanding nebulae – remnants of some cataclysmic explosion several million years ago. Often, these still expanding clouds of gas and debris are invisible to us, as they fall outside of the visible spectrum of our human eyes.

What you're seeing are images of gamma rays, x-rays, etc. that have been artificially coloured so that they fall within the visible spectrum that we humans can perceive.

[bigfoot3000]

AahI see now, well thank you to yourself and flobadob and to the guys that "Fill in the spaces' so beautifully so we can appreciate and understand the universe bit better.

[birdie1971]

It analogous to thermal imaging.

We can't 'see' heat. We can 'sense' it but we can't physically see it.


We've all seen thermal imaging camera footage – most likely taken from a police helicopter tracking the movements of criminals fleeing from the police.

The images of nebulae are created basically the same way. The invisible spectrum is artificially coloured to allow us to see it. In the case of the above photographs, different colours are used to denote difference wavelengths, giving the image a distinctly artistic quality.

And they are truly beautiful in my opinion.

[bigfoot3000]

Indeed they are birdie.

[beso]

For more awesome pictures take a look at Galaxy Zoo forum.

http://www.galaxyzoof...g/index.php?board=4.0

If you care to look at the rest of the collection you will see that most galaxies are pretty ordinary. By chance some of the them are stunningly beautiful.

Such is the nature of a nearly infinite phenomenon that has existed for more than 13 billion years. Even something as exquisite as life itself can appear in something so ancient and vast.

It definitely makes me wonder how some people can be so boring to insist that a mysterious creator of undefined origen is behind it all.

[bigfoot3000]

Great site beso, cheers!