Dramatic Images of Space?

[SpaceBurger]

I keep seeing pictures like this one: http://www.utahskies.org/image_library/ ... 00x800.jpg

And ask myself - is that fake? I have never seen the sky look like that. Anywhere. Even in the middle of the great barrier reef in perfect darkness.

Where can one see the sky looking like this?

I dare say if the human race saw this at night, we'd have a much greater understanding of our place in the universe - as being on a floating rock in a vast expanse .... but as it is, everyone operates as if we are in a bubble.

 

[SpeedFreek]

I keep seeing pictures like this one: http://www.utahskies.org/image_library/ ... 00x800.jpg

And ask myself - is that fake? I have never seen the sky look like that. Anywhere. Even in the middle of the great barrier reef in perfect darkness.

Where can one see the sky looking like this?

I dare say if the human race saw this at night, we'd have a much greater understanding of our place in the universe - as being on a floating rock in a vast expanse .... but as it is, everyone operates as if we are in a bubble.

These photos are taken using a long exposure, in order to bring out all the detail. Our eyes do not work in the same way.

Some of the photos you see of the most distant galaxies have had telescopes looking at those galaxies for days, in order to collect enough light to build up those wonderful images.

 

[ZenGalacticore]

It doesn't help that the vast majority of the world's people in the industrialized countries live immersed in atrocious man-made light pollution. And much of it is unnecessary.

For example, anywhere in the U.S., when one is approaching a major city on the interstate expressway, at a certain perimeter the whatchamacallem's bright orange street lights begin. In Atlanta, they are on either side of the freeway, as well as down the middle, spaced about 40 ft apart.

Now, I ask, do they really need that many? Couldn't we have the street lights spaced 100 or even 200 feet apart? After all, our cars have headlights. And take a look at any metropolis city in the middle of the night, round 3 am, half the skyscrapers are all lit up, with no one in them. Why?

For that matter, why do so many suburbanites leave flood lights on all the time, even when they're home? Those things drink energy, and they're obnoxious. Why are mall and strip shopping center parking lots all lit up when all the stores are closed? I can understand keeping some security lights on in the stores themselves, but the empty parking lot? :?

 

[MeteorWayne]

Very true; even in that image you can see the orange glow of a distant city near the horizon. Still, it is a long time exposure, probably a minute or two...

 

[a_lost_packet_]

..I dare say if the human race saw this at night, we'd have a much greater understanding of our place in the universe - as being on a floating rock in a vast expanse .... but as it is, everyone operates as if we are in a bubble.

Imagine for a moment that you are Galileo. You've been studying the night sky and know that if it's dark enough and you're there long enough, you can make out very, very faint stars. You do your best to record these observations and note every one that you can see.

Then, the moment comes when you hear the news that a new invention has come along - The telescope. It makes far away things appear to be close by! It doesn't take you very long to figure out how it is done and your quickly cobble together at telescope for yourself.

The night arrives and you eagerly set up your new instrument, confident that those dim stars you had just barely been able to see will finally be revealed. You place your pen and paper within easy reach and carefully place your eye, just so, over the eyepiece... What you see changes your life forever.

No, it's not the formerly dim stars. They're still there, yet a bit easier to see. It's the multitudes of stars magically revealed that you had never seen before after all your years of searching. You don't know it yet, but those stars have been waiting billions of years for you to see their light. In one instant, your Universe has grown three-fold. Now, the little faint points you could barely see that you had given such mystery are nothing compared to the legions of their companions. Curious groups of lights twinkle at your exclamation of surprise. Familiar splotches of light take on shape and color that they had never had before and the sky is crossed by a river of light, as if some last flourish of a brushstroke was the final lasting touch on the masterpiece of the Universe by its Creator.

Suddenly, your paper is not big enough and your pen too crude a tool to describe your observations at that moment.

What you might see in such a photograph as you posted and the feeling you have when viewing it could be exactly what Galileo and others experienced when they first glanced through the earliest telescopes. Humbling, yet inspiring.