3 ms·
I'm an astronomer, and I think you're probably wrong. It's mostly down to exposure. Those little dots you're seeing in the images are likely cosmic rays. Those
by xioxox 7y ago
I'm an astronomer, and I think you're probably wrong. It's mostly down to exposure. Those little dots you're seeing in the images are likely cosmic rays. Those are removed by combining multiple images, as cosmic rays don't appear in the same places.
- avar 7y agoThe pixel-sized dots are cosmic rays, those are obviously artifacts as some of them can be seen in front of Saturn. I'm referring to objects you can consistently see between different observations. E.g. this one around 1/2 a planet width from the pole you can't see observed from 2018-06-06 14:35:05 until 2018-06-06 14:46:35: http://hst.esac.esa.int/ehst-sl-server/servlet/data-action?RETRIEVAL_TYPE=PRODUCT&ARTIFACT_ID=idg236o2q_raw.jpg http://hst.esac.esa.int/ehst-sl-server/servlet/data-action?R... http://hst.esac.esa.int/ehst-sl-server/servlet/data-action?RETRIEVAL_TYPE=PRODUCT&ARTIFACT_ID=idg236o3q_raw.jpg http://hst.esac.esa.int/ehst-sl-server/servlet/data-action?R... http://hst.esac.esa.int/ehst-sl-server/servlet/data-action?RETRIEVAL_TYPE=PRODUCT&ARTIFACT_ID=idg236o4q_raw.jpg http://hst.esac.esa.int/ehst-sl-server/servlet/data-action?R... http://hst.esac.esa.int/ehst-sl-server/servlet/data-action?RETRIEVAL_TYPE=PRODUCT&ARTIFACT_ID=idg236o5q_raw.jpg http://hst.esac.esa.int/ehst-sl-server/servlet/data-action?R... Although looking again perhaps that's a moon of Saturn's rather than a particularly bright star. Not an astronomer, just an interested amateur. The few times I've been curious enough to look at the raw data behind these images I've found background celestial objects that are definitely edited out. That's understandable, the point is to show e.g. Saturn and not whatever background objects happened to be there at the time Hubble took the photo. I'm just pointing out it's not all due to the light exposure.