Remember when Hubble photos came in grainy black and white, not these processed color images?

I dug up a CD from 1995 with raw Hubble data and compared it to that new Pillars of Creation reprocess, and the amount of detail we can pull out now is almost like looking at a different nebula entirely, has anyone else gone back and looked at the old stuff?

3 comments

3 Comments

knight.dylan1mo ago

You know, I used to kinda roll my eyes when people talked about going back to old Hubble data... thought it was just the same images we'd seen forever. Then I actually pulled up some raw Eagle Nebula frames from the 90s and compared them to the recent reprocess and yeah, you're totally right. It's like wiping fog off a window you didn't even realize was there.

linda_dixon491mo ago

You ever wonder how much we just couldn't see back then? The original data was like looking through a dirty window, and that reprocess is like someone finally cleaned it. All those faint wisps and tiny stars we missed, they were there the whole time. Just needed better tools and a fresh look. Makes you think what else is hiding in old data that we'll see ten years from now.

the_anthony1mo ago

The 90s Hubble data was basically the space equivalent of a flip phone camera. Now we're walking around with the James Webb in our pocket like it's nothing.