3 ms·

There are no pure black areas between stars, and that's not (just) sensor noise. It's not very wrong to say that every single pixel in that image holds at least

There are no pure black areas between stars, and that's not (just) sensor noise. It's not very wrong to say that every single pixel in that image holds at least one galaxy. If you collect enough light, you will find something interesting to look at.

irrational 6y ago
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2015/04/24/when-hubble-stared-at-nothing-for-100-hours/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2015/04...
- alok-g 6y ago
  Wow!
  - dylan604 6y ago
    I love that this is your reaction to that story, as I believe that is the only valid reaction! I also love being reminded that every day someone gets to experience something new that I've already taken as fact.
crazygringo 6y ago
At some point the sensor noise swamps any signal, given your setup and processing. So from a philosophical view every pixel holds a galaxy, but from a practical point of view sensor noise obliterates it. I think it's reasonable to call the area in between visible stars "black" when received light is below the noise floor.
- geon 6y ago
  I’m guessing that it is difficult to distinguish the “noise” of sub pixel galaxies from the thermal noise of the sensor.
vl 6y ago
It’s not exactly correct though: at this resolution - maybe, but at resolution high enough there are gaps between galaxies. The reason for that is that region of space we can observe is finite. If it would be infinite, and between any two objects we would see one more object, all we would is see is uniform white.