Good basic primer on the science behind VLBI: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/04/13/ask-ethan-how-does-very-long-baseline-interferometry-allow-us-to-image-a-black-hole/#22e841afa207

says the guy who thinks the impact of beef production on climate change is 'just a few cow farts'...

I have no trouble with VLBI tech my friend. What I DO have trouble with is "knowing" that what they imaged, is in fact a black hole at the center of M87... which IS what I said.

What they have claimed to have done is to image the center of a very large galaxy, while being able to definitively edit out all the intervening galactic objects that were in their way. That's a LOT of stuff to "see" through, hence my skepticism.
No mater what frequency they used...there are still millions of objects that have discharges at the same frequencies in a galaxy.


/e If they had claimed to have an image of a black hole from a spiral galaxy (lot less to look through), I would be a lot less skeptical. But M87 is a globular galaxy and a huge one.

Here's another way to look at it. If they can see the black hole at the center of M87, then they should also be able to see Sag A at the center of the Milky Way. There is far less crap (even edge on) in the way of an image of Sag A as there is in the way of the black hole at the center of M87.












/ee AND... M87 is 53 MILLION light years away.

This post was edited by Ghot on Apr 13 2019 11:09am

the important thing here is how do we turn this into an anti-left conspiracy theory

tl;dr version...

To see Sag A at the center of the Milky Way, you have to image through 25k light years of crap. To see the black hole at the center of M87 you have to image through 60k light years of crap, AND do it from 53 million light years away.



/e The CLAIM is that Earth isn't in the right position to capture an image of Sag A. But I think I've shown, that that claim is just a bit.... BS


/ee Everything this group claimed, MIGHT be true, but I'd like to see quite a bit more info on this before I start up an M87 religion.

This post was edited by Ghot on Apr 13 2019 11:17am

Yes it's very far away. But we've made plenty of pictures of things that are further away than M87.

Like the Hubble Deep Field.

You just have a lack of understanding and an unwillingness to admit a lack of understanding.

Well if you try very hard for a LOT of years, you MIGHT just get UP to my level of misunderstanding....KID!!!

This post was edited by Ghot on Apr 13 2019 11:18am

Btw did you know that when you watch a black hole you see its hidden face too ? Black holes are so amazing, maybe posting a racist meme around it will be fine ?

REGARDS.

I know and have re-read the explanations. I still have my doubts. Personally, Imma take a wait and see approach. This sounds too much like "look there are canals on Mars, and we have pictures".

When we are at the very edge of technical abilities in something, the human race usually makes some assumptions, that most always turn out to be partially or completely incorrect. After we go around the black hole imaging block about 167 times, I'll be a bit less skeptical.

Oh look, it's dragons eating the sun. <--- Yet another case in point.