Dailup warning. Large picture warning. Total intergalactic awesomeness warning.

[Bucky]

Anyone who says this is all empty & lifeless and God just intended it for eye candy in case we invented the telescope is full of horse pucky.

[armyowalgreens]

1. The amount of energy associated with that image is mind boggling...

I wonder how wide that is from one tip to the other.

[pokerfan]

3. ~ 3 light years

# ^ Radius = distance × sin(angular size / 2) = 3.4 ± 0.5 kly * sin(>3′.0 / 2) = >1.5 ± 0.2 ly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6302

[armyowalgreens]

11. I believe that is just shy of 5 billion miles. That is kind of hard to fathom.

[pokerfan]

14. a light year is about 6 trillion miles

and the whole thing is about three and a half thousand light years away.

Someone even updated the wiki entry with the latest image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6302.

[armyowalgreens]

15. I must have grossly miscalculated somewhere.

[Scurrilous]

2. Kick for the awesomeness.

:thumbsup:

[gblady]

4. amazing picture....

thanks for sharing!!!

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. I once dreamed that heaven looked just like the inside of one of those things. Or rather

heaven was one of those and so were all the people in it. It was a very peaceful dream. Much nicer than the ones with hungry dinosaurs or tornadoes chasing me. :P

[Bucky]

19. And yet think...

of the numerical near-impossibility that there aren't tornadoes going off on some planet down inside there. For that matter, there might even be somethings that look like dinosaurs.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. Wow! That's spectacular!

[Odin2005]

7. Kinda morbid that star death is so pretty, innit?

:evilgrin:

[Xithras]

26. Only pretty from a distance.

It's pretty from here, but you wouldn't want to be anywhere near that thing in its current state.

[Strong Atheist]

8. "God just intended it for eye candy"... well now, don't agree with that, but since this is

the Lounge...

exit, stage left...



:yoiks:

[darkstar]

9. Interstellar Appeal

Always more.

[astral]

10. I love that pic.

[MissHoneychurch]

12. My screen now has a new background

what a amazing picture. :wow:

[pokerfan]

13. If your screen is larger than 1072 pixels wide

you can download a larger (1600 x 1200) version http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/multimedia/ero/ero_ngc6302.html">here and even the raw image which is more than 3000 pixels across.

[MissHoneychurch]

17. Thank you

I did it. It looks great :)

[pokerfan]

21. Yeah

My screen is 1280x1024 so I was able to simply take the first image and rotate it ninety degrees (there's no up in space) and crop a little bit to make it fit perfectly. But those of you with larger monitors will definitely want to start with one of the bigger images.

[MilesColtrane]

16. El Farto Grande es enorme!

[TheKentuckian]

18. Amazing!

[SidneyCarton]

20. I hardly believe that it is all empty and lifeless...

But if there is a God, he has gorgeous taste.

[Fire Walk With Me]

22. Stellar nurseries are always cool.

Thanks for the pic!

[pokerfan]

23. For comparison purposes

This pic of the Butterfly Nebula taken by the VLT in Chile was the Astronomy Picture of the Day eleven years ago:



"It's getting better all the time..."

[Iggo]

24. Hey! No sex threads!

Dammit!

[proteus_lives]

25. Very Beautiful!

The universe is wonderful.

[Xithras]

27. There are several new Hubble pics out. (pic heavy)

These are all test and calibration photos taken since the refurb.