Event Horizon - Black Hole Live
Discussion
It took them two months to crunch the test data to see if it would even work. 
Digger said:
This all about maths and the size of telescopes right?
Yes. They've synced up radio telescopes on opposite sides of the Earth and that gives them the resolving power of a radio telescope the size of the Earth. The image they've achieved is equivalent to looking up Niel Armstrong's nose from the Earth while he was tooling around on the Moon. 40 billion km wide at 54 million light years is equivalent to about 3.5 cm on the surface of the Moon from Earth. Very, very good effort. ATG said:
Digger said:
This all about maths and the size of telescopes right?
Yes. They've synced up radio telescopes on opposite sides of the Earth and that gives them the resolving power of a radio telescope the size of the Earth. The image they've achieved is equivalent to looking up Niel Armstrong's nose from the Earth while he was tooling around on the Moon. 40 billion km wide at 54 million light years is equivalent to about 3.5 cm on the surface of the Moon from Earth. Very, very good effort. Quick question, using your example, could it actually focus at such a close range or is that just extrapolated for someone to get their head around?
If it could, some of the pictures of our own solar system could insane!
It's looking at radio frequency emissions so although the resolving power is amazing I doubt you'd see enough variation in the emissions themselves over such short distances across the objects in the Solar System you'd be looking at for the images to be that interesting. I could be completely wrong.
julian64 said:
Terminator X said:
Whilst I appreciate that you'd get crushed etc if you could get through what is on the other side of a black hole eg where does all the light go?
TX.
Okay stupid talking here so you will have to take everything I say with a pinch of salt. If you are a dreamer you talk about other universes. If you are a realist you see it as natures quantum trash compactor and recycler, and a very necessary part of how matter can be changed to be more usefulTX.
There is so much we don't know about quantum physics that its like a monkey looking at a TV. When and if we do finally understand quantum physics then we won't be as amazed as the monkey anymore
Was it Richard Feynman that said "if you think you understand quantum mechanics, it means you don't"?
Piha said:
Terminator X said:
Whilst I appreciate that you'd get crushed etc if you could get through what is on the other side of a black hole eg where does all the light go?
TX.
I am led to believe that a black hole isn't really a hole. It is speculated there is a solid mass at the centre. Hopefully someone will be able to explain this much better than me (and that shouldn't be difficult...).TX.
Or is it the method that captured the image that shows this and yes we would in fact get the same result from any angle?
They were referring to the black part of the image as the "shadow". By definition, you cannot see a black hole as to see it, it needs to emit or reflect light. By definition, a black hole can do neither of these things. However, the intense gravity it creates certainly affects matter orbiting it or falling into it and the radiation created by this matter as it spirals towards the hole itself is what causes the glow surrounding it.
The image does seem to show that the glow is not uniform around the black home, which could indicate that the gravitational field surrounding the black hole is not uniform - or it could indicate that the mass of the matter falling towards or orbiting the black hole is not uniform - or it might just be down to the inability of the techniques being used to create the image to resolve detail sufficiently accurately.
It will be interesting as they improve the resolving capability of this methodology and also as they look at other black hole candidate objects to see how other black holes and their surroundings look like. I bet there will be many variations.
The image does seem to show that the glow is not uniform around the black home, which could indicate that the gravitational field surrounding the black hole is not uniform - or it could indicate that the mass of the matter falling towards or orbiting the black hole is not uniform - or it might just be down to the inability of the techniques being used to create the image to resolve detail sufficiently accurately.
It will be interesting as they improve the resolving capability of this methodology and also as they look at other black hole candidate objects to see how other black holes and their surroundings look like. I bet there will be many variations.
Eric Mc said:
The image does seem to show that the glow is not uniform around the black home, which could indicate that the gravitational field surrounding the black hole is not uniform - or it could indicate that the mass of the matter falling towards or orbiting the black hole is not uniform - or it might just be down to the inability of the techniques being used to create the image to resolve detail sufficiently accurately.
That's mentioned in the video I linked 
'relativistic/doppler beaming'https://youtu.be/zUyH3XhpLTo?t=494
Edited by budgie smuggler on Thursday 11th April 11:12
Digger said:
Being a cynical fella, where is the conclusive evidence that this is in no way. . . a hoax?
Or at the very least a distortion of the reality?
How about starting from a position of trust in science rather than assuming the infinitesimal chance that hundreds of scientists are involved in an elaborate hoax?Or at the very least a distortion of the reality?
Read the papers and give us your view on the experiment?
nammynake said:
Digger said:
Being a cynical fella, where is the conclusive evidence that this is in no way. . . a hoax?
Or at the very least a distortion of the reality?
How about starting from a position of trust in science rather than assuming the infinitesimal chance that hundreds of scientists are involved in an elaborate hoax?Or at the very least a distortion of the reality?
Read the papers and give us your view on the experiment?
I think you may have fallen foul of Digger,s humour black hole.
but then again i may be to charitable
nammynake said:
Digger said:
Being a cynical fella, where is the conclusive evidence that this is in no way. . . a hoax?
Or at the very least a distortion of the reality?
How about starting from a position of trust in science rather than assuming the infinitesimal chance that hundreds of scientists are involved in an elaborate hoax?Or at the very least a distortion of the reality?
Read the papers and give us your view on the experiment?
Just trying to get to grips with some shiny new astronomy kit - an 8 inch Ritchey–Chrétien and a Zwo ASI 294MC cooled camera - should really be doing ~300 second sub exposures and stacking, but I thought what the hell, and ran a 2000 second exposure on M87 last night with the camera at -15C and a nebula filter, and with stretching the levels a bit I think I have managed to image the M87 jet at least....
Some really horrible amp glow in other parts of the image, but I'll try and have a go at some sub exposure and stacking tonight.
The Hubble is also a Ritchey–Chrétien design - hyperbolic Cassegrain, but a bit more expensive than mine.
citizensm1th said:
nammynake said:
Digger said:
Being a cynical fella, where is the conclusive evidence that this is in no way. . . a hoax?
Or at the very least a distortion of the reality?
How about starting from a position of trust in science rather than assuming the infinitesimal chance that hundreds of scientists are involved in an elaborate hoax?Or at the very least a distortion of the reality?
Read the papers and give us your view on the experiment?
I think you may have fallen foul of Digger,s humour black hole.
but then again i may be to charitable
I shall go read the articles at some point!
eharding said:
...or, you could always go and look for yourself
Just trying to get to grips with some shiny new astronomy kit - an 8 inch Ritchey–Chrétien and a Zwo ASI 294MC cooled camera - should really be doing ~300 second sub exposures and stacking, but I thought what the hell, and ran a 2000 second exposure on M87 last night with the camera at -15C and a nebula filter, and with stretching the levels a bit I think I have managed to image the M87 jet at least....
Some really horrible amp glow in other parts of the image, but I'll try and have a go at some sub exposure and stacking tonight.
The Hubble is also a Ritchey–Chrétien design - hyperbolic Cassegrain, but a bit more expensive than mine.
That is impressive. It does indeed look like you have captured the jet.Just trying to get to grips with some shiny new astronomy kit - an 8 inch Ritchey–Chrétien and a Zwo ASI 294MC cooled camera - should really be doing ~300 second sub exposures and stacking, but I thought what the hell, and ran a 2000 second exposure on M87 last night with the camera at -15C and a nebula filter, and with stretching the levels a bit I think I have managed to image the M87 jet at least....
Some really horrible amp glow in other parts of the image, but I'll try and have a go at some sub exposure and stacking tonight.
The Hubble is also a Ritchey–Chrétien design - hyperbolic Cassegrain, but a bit more expensive than mine.
Okay so now I'm really under whelmed. I was watching a ted talk yesterday with one of the team who processed the images talking about the software created.
The scarcity of information over the size of earth meant they had to 'computer model' a likelihood of what they were intending to see. The rotation of the earth obviously allowed more data points.
She showed a picture of a group of people run through the same computer model and again this showed a similar black hole looking picture. They then decided how far back they could relaxed the calculations such that a photo of a group of people and a photo of a black hole didn't look the same.
I came away thinking the data could have been made to look like anything they wanted and that we would all be far less impressed if we saw the raw data which would look like white noise.
The scarcity of information over the size of earth meant they had to 'computer model' a likelihood of what they were intending to see. The rotation of the earth obviously allowed more data points.
She showed a picture of a group of people run through the same computer model and again this showed a similar black hole looking picture. They then decided how far back they could relaxed the calculations such that a photo of a group of people and a photo of a black hole didn't look the same.
I came away thinking the data could have been made to look like anything they wanted and that we would all be far less impressed if we saw the raw data which would look like white noise.
There's a BBC Iplayer program on this now as well.
Interesting and the organisation and co-operation is very impressive.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00042l4/how...
But it was dumbed down in places as per usual with some enhanced mild peril and fairly puerile narration comments like...
"Things aren't going well at the xyz observatory in outer somewhere remote, if dave can't fix the abc infraredxrayspectroharddiscstorage in the next 10 minutes then they might lose twenty quintillion bits of data.." BBC Please stop doing that!!!!
Anyway it's was impressive, but the data manipulation at the end to get the image was curious.
I did raise an eyebrow as they kept running the code and changing it until it looked like what they wanted.
The manipulation shown i'm sure was legitimate, will be well peer reviewed, and in line with allowable processes..
If I was a betting man I would have said a Nobel Prize was highly likely for some involved..
Can they use the same techniques to image an exoplanet orbiting one of our nearby stars?
We ought to be able to see the radio equivalent of the alien great wall of China easily from here..
Interesting and the organisation and co-operation is very impressive.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00042l4/how...
But it was dumbed down in places as per usual with some enhanced mild peril and fairly puerile narration comments like...
"Things aren't going well at the xyz observatory in outer somewhere remote, if dave can't fix the abc infraredxrayspectroharddiscstorage in the next 10 minutes then they might lose twenty quintillion bits of data.." BBC Please stop doing that!!!!
Anyway it's was impressive, but the data manipulation at the end to get the image was curious.
I did raise an eyebrow as they kept running the code and changing it until it looked like what they wanted.
The manipulation shown i'm sure was legitimate, will be well peer reviewed, and in line with allowable processes..
If I was a betting man I would have said a Nobel Prize was highly likely for some involved..
Can they use the same techniques to image an exoplanet orbiting one of our nearby stars?
We ought to be able to see the radio equivalent of the alien great wall of China easily from here..
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