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Posts Tagged ‘outshines’

Hubble captures supernova 70M light-years away as it briefly outshines its host galaxy

06 Oct

The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured images of an exploding star 70 million light-years away. The event was recorded as part of an ongoing program to measure the expansion rate of the universe in order to better understand its age. For a moment, the explosion outshined its entire host galaxy and the resulting energy was ‘equal to the radiance of 5 billion Suns.’

NASA has assembled its images from the Hubble Space Telescope to create a new time-lapse sequence, seen below. The supernova explosion took place in the spiral galaxy NGC 2525. In February 2018, Hubble began its observation of SN2018gv after a Japanese amateur astronomer, Koichi Itagaki, first detected it in mid-January. The supernova has been used to help precisely the expansion rate of the universe, which is itself critical to our understanding of the universe.

The time-lapse sequence above spanned nearly a year, with the supernova first appearing ‘as a blazing star located on the galaxy’s outer edge. It initially outshines the brightest stars in the galaxy before fading out of sight.’

Nobel Laureate Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and John Hopkins University says, ‘No earthly fireworks display can compete with this supernova, captured in its fading glory by the Hubble Space Telescope.’ Riess is the leader of the High-z Supernova Search Team and the Supernovae H0 for the Equation of State (SH0ES) Team.

The NASA Hubble Site news release continues, ‘The type of supernova seen in this sequence originated from a burned-out star—a white dwarf located in a close binary system—that is accreting material from its companion star. When the white dwarf reaches a critical mass, its core becomes hot enough to ignite nuclear fusion, turning it into a giant atomic bomb. This thermonuclear runaway process tears the dwarf apart. The opulence is short-lived as the fireball fades away.’ SN2018gv is a Type Ia supernova. You can learn more about supernovae and the characteristics of each type in this article from BBC’s Sky at Night.

NASA, ESA, and A. Riess (STScI/JHU) and the SH0ES team Acknowledgment: M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)

Supernovae like SN2018gv peak at the same brightness, which allows them to act a type of standard, ‘standard candles.’ With the actual peak brightness known, scientists can determine the distances of host galaxies by comparing visible brightness. With this information, it is then possible to measure the expansion rate of the universe itself. You can learn more about how Hubble has aided in our understanding of the universe’s expansion rate in this article.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Nikon Z6’s 4K video footage outshines Z7’s, is similar to Sony a7 III’s

15 Nov

You can download our sample video right here.

The Nikon Z6 is a supremely capable video camera that comes with a 24MP full-frame sensor and captures oversampled 4K footage with no crop. It can also shoot 1080/120p footage for slow motion clips. The above sample footage was all shot hand-held with in-body IS turned on using the Auto AF area mode and Fulltime autofocus (AF-F).

Clips were recorded in-camera using Nikon’s Flat Picture profile. While not quite as workable as 10-bit N-log footage available over HDMI, a little time spent tweaking Flat Picture footage can lead to very nice results. This footage was edited in Final Cut 10.4.

Video still

Below please find our video still for comparing the Z6’s various video modes to those of its peers, including its most direct competitor, the Sony a7 III.

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4K

The Z6 and a7 III are taking different approaches to their oversampled 4K output with the Sony doing a better job capturing fine detail$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4310-731235669”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4310); }); }). The Z6 on the other hand looks to be using larger-radius sharpening$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4311–410966151”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4311); }); }) (by default) which results in a punchier look$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4312-553981737”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4312); }); }) out of camera. As expected, the Z6’s full-frame 4K looks better than the Z7’s full-frame 4K$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4309-910283880”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4309); }); }), which doesn’t use all its pixel rows, reducing both resolution and low-light performance.

The Z6’s cropped 4K$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4319-1546915030”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4319); }); }) also appears to use larger-radius sharpening than the Sony’s and looks similar (but still slightly better) when compared to the Z7’s$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4313–2140375960”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4313); }); }). Interestingly the Z6’s 4K full-frame footage looks very similar$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4314–395951683”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4314); }); }) to its 4K APS-C cropped footage. There may be a bit of a noise penalty $ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4315-911523642”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4315); }); }) using the later, but detail is broadly similar.

1080p

The Z6’s full-frame 1080/24p looks better both than the Z7’s full-frame 1080/24p$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4316–282793192”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4316); }); }) and than the a7 III’s 1080/24p$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4317–2139838496”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4317); }); }). As a whole, the Z6’s HD footage has much more sharpening applied than the a7 III’s, but it doesn’t necessarily show much more tangible detail. This is also the case when comparing the Z6’s 1080/120p$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4318–805046091”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4318); }); }) to the a7 III’s.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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