Just found out the Hubble deep field photo took 10 days of exposure time

I always thought those pictures were like... a long camera exposure but maybe an hour or two. 10 days though? That's insane. Read it on the NASA site while killing time between clients at my shop. Makes you realize how empty space actually is when you have to stare at one tiny spot for that long just to see a few galaxies. Anyone else get mind-blown by stuff like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

alicec863d ago

My buddy Dave tried to do his own version for a photography class last year. He set up his telescope in his backyard and pointed it at what he thought was an empty patch of sky near the Big Dipper. Left the camera running for three whole nights, checking batteries and fighting with clouds the whole time. When he finally looked at the images, he got like three faint smudges that could have been dust on the lens. He was so bummed but it really drove home how patient those Hubble scientists have to be. Made me respect the whole process a lot more honestly.

wadeyoung3d agoMost Upvoted

Three nights of that, and I bet he didn't even account for the satellite trails (which seem to ruin everything these days). Did he try stacking the images with software like DeepSkyStacker, or did he just look at the raw frames? Because honestly, even the Hubble guys have to combine a ton of exposures to pull out those faint details, and a single smudge can turn into a galaxy if you process it right. A buddy of mine does astrophotography as a hobby and swears by that method for backyard stuff, says it's like magic for pulling signal out of noise.