When, where, and how was this image taken? I shall presume it was by you? Where exactly is this in the galactic center?
This was taken last year by the Keck II telescope using the laser guide star, and it is the highest resolution image of the galactic center ever taken, because of the laser...
PRESS RELEASE HERE: http://www2.keck.hawaii.edu/news/science_mtg/gc.html
So I didn't take the picture, Keck did... I was just there on the summit when it was taken...
The galactic black hole is near the center of that picture, that picture is actually a mosaic of 5 images using the laser... Here is a closeup of the center:
while we were looking 'something' fell into the black hole at the center of our galaxy...
you can see the flare it made:
It was cool to step outside and see the laser beam pointing up to the center of the milky way, and then realize that in tens of thousands of years, when humanity is something unrecognizeable to us, one of the photons in that laser beam will be absorbed by a sodium atom in some gas cloud near the center of the galaxy and its path and the path of all the atoms it will collide with...and so on... will be changed forever... spooky aint it? :)
Narrow-field image of the Galactic Center at 3.8 microns (L prime) obtained with the Keck Laser Guide Star System on July 26, 2004
Space/Science » in reply to re: And here is the best closeup of the center of the galaxy:
I should have been clearer
The whole thread (23 posts)
- Classics of Stellar Physics...
- Thank you
- An Odd Experience...
- Thank you