HubbleSpacePhotos.com

Those are the initials for various catalogs of astronomical objects. "M" stands for Messier (an astronomer), NGC stands for New General Catalog. I guess NIC stands for New International Catalog.

For instance, M81 is the 81st item listed by Messier and NGC4214 is the 4214th item in the New General Catalog. Some of the items also have popular names such as the Andromeda Galaxy.

Items in older catalogs are also listed in the newer catalogs, under different numbers.

NICMOS and WPF are two of the cameras on Hubble.

2) How do you get that cool 'Trail of Stars' cursor on the home page?

It is activated by a Javascript script I found on another website. Look at the HTML source code. It begins with the dots defined at <DIV> and goes to the end of the code. It does not work on the "Gecko" engine used by Firefox. No, I don't know how to modify it to do other things. If you want to change the "trail", you have to change the height and width parameters in the script. You can add or reduce the number of "dots". I created animated GIFs to get the stars to change to letters.

3) What is the big deal about Jesus?

That requires a fairly detailed explanation that is beyond the scope of this website. See this link for information: About Jesus

4) Why do you have 'Shroud of Turin' junk? Don't you know that in 1988 scientists conclusively proved by radiocarbon dating that the Shroud only dates back to the Middle Ages, around 1300 A.D.?

The radiocarbon dating was performed on a sample cut from one corner of the Shroud, in a portion where there is no image. In the mid-2000's a husband and wife couple (who were not scientists) realized that photomicrographs (ultra-high resolution photos) taken in the late 70's by a member of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) showed that there was a previously unsuspected repair of the Shroud and that the entire sample was taken from the repaired section.

Without identifying the object photographed or who took the images, they submitted the images to three textile experts, each of whom said the images definitely showed an expert repair using a "French reweave" technique common in Europe in the early modern era. The technique wove in a piece of cotton and the cotton was then dyed to match the color of the surrounding linen. This is possible because linen is highly resistant to dye but cotton is not. The repair was done so expertly that even under high magnification and close inspection, none of the STURP team had noticed any difference. The couple managed to get a scientific paper published and to present their findings at a respected conference.

When the paper was published, Ray Rogers, the scientist who had taken the photomicrophs, read it and his reaction was, "That's ridiculous! These people aren't even scientists! I have sample fibers we took during the examination. I can prove their theory is false!

Rogers put a sample under the microscope and got the shock of his career when, instead, he confirmed their theory! He saw that clearly there were cotton threads interwoven into linen threads and the cotton was dyed to match the linen. Because Rogers knew he was dying of cancer, he called another member of STURP, photographer Barrie Schwortz, told him his results, Schwortz videotaped interview footage with him, and he prepared a paper and submitted it to a scientific journal five days before his death. Subsequently the paper was accepted and published in 2008. Schwortz also examined X-ray false-color flourescence images taken by STURP and pointed out that in the entire Shroud, the only area that came out green was the area from which the sample was taken—indicating that that area had a different chemical composition than the rest of the Shroud. Prior to the discovery of the previously unknown repair, no one had noticed the anomaly. The interviews with Rogers and Schwortz were included in a December 2008 documentary on the Discovery Channel titled Unwrapping the Shroud: New Evidence.

5) Are the images or the video copyrighted?

As far as I know, no.

Regarding the "Nailing to the Cross" Flash video, I ran across it years ago on a website. As far as I know, the site is no longer up. If I remember correctly, the author did not object to other people using it. Unfortunately, I don't remember his name or how to contact him. There may be some information in the video source but I don't have Flash Shockwave Macromedia authoring software, so I can't check.

I put together the Praises to God animated GIF praise-anim.gif and the animated GIFs used by the Trail of Stars script. You can use them without requesting permission. I would appreciate a link back to this site or to God On The Net.

6) Is it okay to download them?

Yes.

7) Can I have your permission to use the photos on my site? To publish them? To link to your site? etc.

I have no ownership interest in any of the image files, including the "Nailing to the Cross" Flash video. You don't need my permission. I created the animated religious GIFs. You can use them without my permission. If you do, I would appreciate a link to the site.

Regarding linking, permission isn't needed, not even for "deep" links, i.e., pages other than the home page. Telling someone they need permission to link to a site is like saying, "You can't tell people which stores sell the book I published unless you get my permission." Hogwash!

However, you should never load or link to an image file on another site without permission, even if the image is not copyrighted! That is stealing bandwidth. A surfer visits your site, but the image is loaded directly from the other site. The owner of the other site has to pay his web host for the amount of data that was transferred from his host to your site, but he doesn't get a visit to his site in exchange!

8) Can I access the images directory directly, so I don't have to go from page to page to download images?

Full-size images are stored in the /pics subdirectory. Thumbnails are in /thumbs. You can access the subdirectories directly and download the individual files.

9) Could you please put a bunch of photos in a single file for easier downloading?

Sorry, I tried that. The site is about 5.7 megabytes and is mainly JPEG files. Because JPEG files are already compressed, the file wound up larger.

10) Where can I get all the Hubble photos?

I don't know. For a fairly good selection, see the Links page.

11) What file formats are the images available in on this site?

Some are GIF, some are JPEG.

12) I'd like some information on shutter speeds, the type of imaging sensors, etc.

Sorry, I can't help you. All I did was set up a site with some beautiful photos of some of God's artwork. I'm sure there are many publications and even a few websites with that information.

13) Could you please convert image XYZ from GIF/JPEG to ABC format for me?

Sorry, you'll have to do any conversion yourself. Presumably, the files I have are in their original formats. Every time you change an image file format, there will be some degradation.

14) What is the difference between GIF and JPG image files?

a) With large files, GIF files tend to be larger than an equivalent JPEG.
b) GIF files are limited to 256 colors.
c) GIF files can have a transparent background.
d) Several GIF images can be combined into a single file to produce animation.
e) For large files, JPEG files tend to be smaller than an equivalent GIF.
f) JPEG files can handle 65k (16 bit), 16.7 million (24 bit) and even 4 billion (32 bit) colors. In practice, few images have more than 32k colors, even flesh-color images. It is quite unlikely you could tell the difference between 65k colors (16 bit) and higher.
g) JPEG files can't have transparent backgrounds.
h) JPEG uses a "lossy" compression algorithm. Some information is permanently removed to make the file size smaller.

15) What is the meaning of file or object names like 9832a or 0012b?

I'm not sure. My guess is that the first two digits are the year the image was made. The second two either indicate the week or the number, i.e., 9832a was taken in 1998. Either it was taken in the 32nd week of 1998 or it was the 32nd image taken or released in 1998. The highest number I have found is 9943a, so I can't tell. Regarding the "a" or "b", those are multiple images of the same object, i.e., 9943c is the third image of the same object imaged in 9943a and 9943b.

The numbers are not astronomical catalog numbers! Anytime where the file name is an astronomical catalog number I included the catalog, e.g., M81 or NGC1512.

16) What's your background?

I'm an attorney in pushing 60, I worked as an electronic technician for ten years, and I have been interested in science since I was nine years old. In the early 1970s I spent a year in a Ph.D. program in Linguistics and Germanic Languages and I hold an earned Doctor of Jurisprudence (law) degree.

I later took coursework in accounting and tax and I received a Certificate in Theology from the extension program of Interdenominational Theological Center. I also learned computer programming on my own and have done some programming professionally.

17) What is the difference between "Revelation" and "Apocalypse"?

In Roman Catholic translations, the final book of the New Testament is titled "Apocalypse". In Protestant and Messianic Jewish translations it is titled "Revelation". The contents are the same. I listed the scripture cites both ways so they can be found either way on search engines.

18) What is the connection between the Hubble images and the Bible verses?

Theologically, there is no connection. Mainly, an image just happened to bring to my mind a particular verse. Sometimes I searched for words like 'star' or 'heavens' and when I found an interesting verse I looked for an image that seemed to fit it. In other cases, I just picked an important verse even though there is no connection to the image.

19) Which Bible translation did you use?

Various translations were used, including the New King James Version (NKJV), New International Version (NIV), American Standard Version (ASV), and Revised Standard Version (RSV). I chose whatever sounded best and/or sort of described the image.

20) Since you believe in the Bible, I guess you don't believe in the Big Bang theory?

On the contrary, the Bible says, God created the heavens and stretched them out. It said that way before Edwin Hubble discovered galaxies and announced to the world on New Year's Day of 1925 that the universe is expanding. I am well aware of things like Arno Penzias winning a Nobel Prize for discovering the cosmic microwave radiation background while searching for sources of noise that affected telephone transmissions.

21) How do you get links in multiple colors?

The usual HTML code for a link is something like this:

<FONT FACE="Arial">Check this: <A HREF="http://www.link.com">Link Name</A></FONT>

Using that code, the color of the link is whatever is listed in the <BODY> tag, e.g.

<BODY TEXT="black" LINK="red">

To force the link to display in a specified color, use this code instead:

Check this: <A HREF="http://www.link.com"><FONT FACE="Arial" COLOR="whatever">Link Name</FONT></A>

The difference is that the font color is specified inside of the reference tags.

Note: even if you specify a COLOR in the usual code, it will be ignored.

22) Somebody told me to check out the page for NGC<whatever>. I typed it in correctly and got a Page Not Found error. Why?

The website is hosted on a Linux server. Unlike MS-Windows, Linux and Unix filenames and directory names are case sensitive. In other words, in a single directory you can have one file named "index.htm", a second named "Index.htm", a third named "INDEX.HTM" and a fourth named "Index.HTM".

The filenames are lowercase and have no spaces. Instead of spaces, I use underscores. Also, I didn't put a separation between the catalog abbreviation and the number, i.e., NGC1502, not NGC_1502. (I don't know which is considered correct, so please don't e-mail me to ask.)

23) Do you have any other sites?

Lots! Here's a list of my sites.

24) What HTML editor, etc., did you use?

The site was created with AOLPress, which used to be available free from AOL. It's pretty nice if you don't need to get fancy and don't intend to use scripts in the body of the page. The main problem I ran into is that it has been discontinued and it only handles HTML 3.2. The biggest problem is that it automatically moves all scripts to the <Head> section of the HTML page. I subsequently ported the site to the Namo WebEditor Version 5.5.

To create the animated GIF I used DavkaWriter, a Hebrew-English wordprocessor and PaintShop Pro, plus a freebie GIF animator I downloaded.

25) How can I link to the site?

The HTML code for a text link is:
<A HREF="http://www.HubbleSpacePhotos.com">Description</A>

You don't need to request my permission. This is the only banner I have. It is 450x75 pixels.

26) How do the e-mail links work?

They activate a little javascript function designed to prevent spam robots from finding the e-mail address. The script can be put in the <head> portion of the HTML code or in a separate file:

Change the values of "var a" and "var b" to the target e-mail address.

To use the function:

	a)	Create a GIF image of the entire e-mail address line. In other words, if you want the line to read: E-mail me at MyName@MyDomain.com that is exactly what the image should look like. It is almost impossible to vertically line up real text with an image of text. If you don't include the "E-mail me at" part in the GIF, the result will be misaligned and will look sloppy and amateurish.
	b)	Insert the image in the page.
	c)	Create a hyperlink for the image. Set the link as: javascript:mail_it()

You can re-name the function, e.g., mail_me(). Actually, you don't need "var a" and "var b". Here is a simpler version:

Cautions: Make sure you have all the double-quotes correct or it won't work. The function name line uses parentheses but the rest uses curly braces, not parentheses.

If you want to have some fun, use a different color for the underline or for different parts of the address and let techie-wannabees go crazy trying to figure out how you got different parts in different colors (apparently) without using a graphic!

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