This is great! I love to meander thru data like this trying to understand what I am looking at.
I found a couple of things that are probably processing artifacts from the spectral filtering and selection of colors.
One of them is a bright blue dipping segment that looks out of place. I can see blue filter artifacts on many of the starbursts. This one is very coherent but only for a short interstellar distance. I have labeled it "2" on the linked screenshots. [0]
The other odd duck is the one labeled "1" on the screenshots. It is a green artifact that is brighter and dipping opposite most of the other green artifacts in the starbursts.
I understand there are likely to be multiple passes of coherence filters, median filters, etc so these are probably related to signal/noise ratio enhancements in the raw data.
If you would like to see them for yourself I have included a couple of screenshots that will help locate them.
So much of this appears to be made up of long segments of stars that may twist through space. The individual stars look to maintain an internally consistent spacing in some cases. I think in many of these the individual stars or points of light are widely separated but from our vantage point they look related.
It is in some ways like using a flashlight to look at the dark sky from the inside of a curving windshield that has a lot of bug guts on it.
The image size of this camera is unbelievably huge in its coverage.
Most telescopes take pictures of objects - this one takes pictures of the entire sky. And will do so in a time-lapse fashion for 10 years.
It's simultaneously more in line with a human's experience than an obscure wavelength of tiny object not visible to the naked eye - it takes a high-resolution picture that's similar to what you'd see if you look at the sky. But it's also profoundly grand beyond a human's experience because of just how much stuff is collected.
I’m the person in the chain that takes the scientific data and maps it into these color images used in the viewer (among other responsibilities). I spent a long time researching and developing the software that as close as possible maps the data into human perception. It means so much to see people out there appreciating our work, and following what Rubin will achieve. So that you for taking your time to check it out!
Hey! Former astronomer here; I used to work a lot with SDSS data products. Do you happen to have a link to any sort of photometry DB/catalog for Rubin? Basically I’m looking to grab a ton of data but I’ve been out of the field for a while and I’m not sure where they publish their data sets and which ones you’d recommend as being relatively accessible.
Jaw-dropping stuff, looking forward to pointing 9-year old daughter (in "Future Astrophysicist" t-shirt) at it!
Possibly a naive question, after surfing the image for a while I didn't find any einstein rings (or arcs) - are they just rare/wrong scale or something else?
This is great! I love to meander thru data like this trying to understand what I am looking at.
I found a couple of things that are probably processing artifacts from the spectral filtering and selection of colors.
One of them is a bright blue dipping segment that looks out of place. I can see blue filter artifacts on many of the starbursts. This one is very coherent but only for a short interstellar distance. I have labeled it "2" on the linked screenshots. [0]
The other odd duck is the one labeled "1" on the screenshots. It is a green artifact that is brighter and dipping opposite most of the other green artifacts in the starbursts.
I understand there are likely to be multiple passes of coherence filters, median filters, etc so these are probably related to signal/noise ratio enhancements in the raw data.
If you would like to see them for yourself I have included a couple of screenshots that will help locate them.
So much of this appears to be made up of long segments of stars that may twist through space. The individual stars look to maintain an internally consistent spacing in some cases. I think in many of these the individual stars or points of light are widely separated but from our vantage point they look related.
It is in some ways like using a flashlight to look at the dark sky from the inside of a curving windshield that has a lot of bug guts on it.
There's a lot going on out there.
[0]https://postimg.cc/gallery/WbFww2h
The image size of this camera is unbelievably huge in its coverage.
Most telescopes take pictures of objects - this one takes pictures of the entire sky. And will do so in a time-lapse fashion for 10 years.
It's simultaneously more in line with a human's experience than an obscure wavelength of tiny object not visible to the naked eye - it takes a high-resolution picture that's similar to what you'd see if you look at the sky. But it's also profoundly grand beyond a human's experience because of just how much stuff is collected.
I always laugh when I tell people I have a wide angle telescope, but Rubin takes that to an entirely different level.
Viewer from Aladin Sky Atlas
https://skyviewer.app/explorer
I’m the person in the chain that takes the scientific data and maps it into these color images used in the viewer (among other responsibilities). I spent a long time researching and developing the software that as close as possible maps the data into human perception. It means so much to see people out there appreciating our work, and following what Rubin will achieve. So that you for taking your time to check it out!
Hey! Former astronomer here; I used to work a lot with SDSS data products. Do you happen to have a link to any sort of photometry DB/catalog for Rubin? Basically I’m looking to grab a ton of data but I’ve been out of the field for a while and I’m not sure where they publish their data sets and which ones you’d recommend as being relatively accessible.
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Jaw-dropping stuff, looking forward to pointing 9-year old daughter (in "Future Astrophysicist" t-shirt) at it!
Possibly a naive question, after surfing the image for a while I didn't find any einstein rings (or arcs) - are they just rare/wrong scale or something else?
and thank you!
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Just beautiful. Idk why, some part of me feels there's repeating fractals that differ in large chunks of time.
At the same time somehow every chunk is genuinely different. So much space my mind wants there to be a trick of some kind that reduces it
Stunning