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A comment on Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the heart of our galaxy. Parent comment

Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by queuebert on Thursday May 12, 2022 @02:03PM (#31357799)
The point spread function of the detector is pretty well characterized, and from there the image is basically just a Fourier transform. It's not as magical as you might think.

Then it looks like they average a bunch of these images to get a maximum likelihood image. What is your issue with that?

Besides, to calibrate on a known celestial body, they'd have to have another micro-arcsecond resolution radio telescope to use. Do you have one they can borrow?

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Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by fasteddie31003 on Thursday May 12, 2022 @03:05PM (#31358760)
Could they not zoom out and take a picture of the stars around Sagittarius A* to compare that to the knowns locations of these stars?
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Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by jasonwatkinspdx on Thursday May 12, 2022 @05:42PM (#31360475)
They absolutely could, but doing so would be a pointless waste of nontrivial resources.
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Re:Astronomers reveal first image of the black hole at the h... by m_mueller on Thursday May 12, 2022 @09:54PM (#31362360)
That doesn’t seem a waste to me. Use the same algorithm, data pipeline and sensors to take imagines of some far away galaxies that are well imaged already, see what you get. If it matches it will certainly be a good argument against the doubters.
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