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Jilly_in_VA

(12,195 posts)
Mon Jun 23, 2025, 12:04 PM 5 hrs ago

First images from world's largest digital camera features stunning shots of the universe

The largest digital camera ever built released its first glamour shots of the universe Monday — including colorful nebulas, stars and galaxies.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, located on a mountaintop in Chile, was built to take a deeper look at the night sky, covering hidden corners. Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy, it will survey the southern sky for the next 10 years.

The observatory's first look features the vibrant Trifid and Lagoon nebulas located thousands of light-years from Earth. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles. A gaggle of galaxies known as the Virgo Cluster were also captured, including two bright blue spirals.

The observatory hopes to image 20 billion galaxies and discover new asteroids and other celestial objects.

https://www.wbir.com/article/news/nation-world/largest-digital-camera-ever-built-releases-first-glamour-shots-universe/507-5dd95f07-c2e4-4b72-b14c-f2626366effb

The images are absolutely stunning!

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First images from world's largest digital camera features stunning shots of the universe (Original Post) Jilly_in_VA 5 hrs ago OP
Always loved the Virgo Cluster. Looking a thousands of galaxies chouchou 5 hrs ago #1
Does make one feel a bit tiny Jilly_in_VA 3 hrs ago #3
But ... how long to download all that to an exabyte USB flash drive ? nt eppur_se_muova 5 hrs ago #2
Downloadable CloudWatcher 11 min ago #5
Good stuff! Thanks for the link! nt Wounded Bear 2 hrs ago #4

chouchou

(2,023 posts)
1. Always loved the Virgo Cluster. Looking a thousands of galaxies
Mon Jun 23, 2025, 12:11 PM
5 hrs ago

and billions of stars/planets can make one throw-a-way the Ego!

Jilly_in_VA

(12,195 posts)
3. Does make one feel a bit tiny
Mon Jun 23, 2025, 02:13 PM
3 hrs ago

doesn't it? I can't wait to see the photos of the Orion cluster, which is my favorite. I think I learned to recognize it even before both Dippers.

CloudWatcher

(2,034 posts)
5. Downloadable
Mon Jun 23, 2025, 05:19 PM
11 min ago

You were no doubt kidding, but fyi the public images are all over on: https://noirlab.edu/public/images/archive/category/rubin/

The first two are available at different resolutions:
https://noirlab.edu/public/images/noirlab2521b/
https://noirlab.edu/public/images/noirlab2521a/

But ... the full resolution originals are 24.2 gig and 14.1 gig, so about 38 gigabytes total. If your ISP can sustain 100 mbit download speeds, that's a little over an hour

Much more difficult is getting a display that shows all the pixels at once ... 84000 x 51500 and 97943 x 51536.

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