Things that make you go, Oooooh!

I'm inspired by many, many things in life. Big and small. And they don't get much bigger than this.

Hubble: Deep Field Shot(s).

The Hubble telescope might be an expensive toy, but to my flagging brain cells, it's as stimulating as a dip in the North Sea in the depths of a British Winter.

 

'The first Deep Field, the Hubble Deep Field North (HDF-N), was observed over 10 consecutive days during Christmas 1995. The resulting image consisted of 342 separate exposures, with a total exposure time of more than 100 hours, compared with typical Hubble exposures of a few hours. The observed region of sky in Ursa Major was carefully selected to be as empty as possible so that Hubble would look far beyond the stars of our own Milky Way and out past nearby galaxies.

The results were astonishing! Almost 3000 galaxies(!) were seen in the image. Scientists analysed the image statistically and found that the HDF had seen back to the very young Universe where the bulk of the galaxies had not, as yet, had time to form stars. Or, as the popular press dramatically reported, “Hubble sees back to Big Bang”.'

3000 galaxies. Not planets, mind. GALAXIES! Ouch! Brain aches. Hmm...I suddenly feel inspired to resurrect those old sci-fi MS I have stashed away in the attic.