Hubble deep field images blew my mind when I actually counted the galaxies

I was looking at the Hubble Ultra Deep Field photo last night and decided to actually count the number of galaxies I could see in one tiny corner. The NASA site says that small patch of sky contains about 10,000 galaxies, but what got me is that the area is just 1/100th the size of a full moon. I had no idea the universe was that packed with stuff. Has anyone else tried zooming in on those photos and just getting lost in all the detail?

2 comments

2 Comments

lisa82011d ago

The ultra deep field pics are cool but honestly I think people overhype how many galaxies you can actually spot yourself. Tried zooming in on that tiny patch and most of those "galaxies" just look like blurry smudges unless you have the actual file at max resolution. Counting 10,000 in a moon-sized area sounds impressive until you realize the moon itself is basically empty space when you look at it. Not trying to rain on the parade or anything but its just a bunch of dots to me.

robinwalker10d ago

Yeah lisa820 I get what you're saying but one thing to keep in mind is that "moon sized area" actually means like a tenth of a percent of the whole sky, not the moon's actual surface. The moon takes up about half a degree across and this patch is a tiny fraction of that, like holding a grain of rice at arm's length. So you're not wrong that most of those dots look like smudges on a regular screen, that's kind of the whole point though. The Hubble team stacked hundreds of hours of exposure time to pull out those faint fuzzies, and even then you need the full resolution tiff to appreciate the spiral structures hiding in there. Still, fair criticism that the hype around the count overshadows how most people will actually experience the image.