Originally Posted By: Bill 6
Originally Posted By: redewenur
BTW, do you still think we have no way of knowing if the image of a distant galaxy is blurred or not, despite the HUDF images?

Those images are just as affected by any free matter in outer space as are those of our personal telescopes.

Originally Posted By: redewenur
Surely, if blurring has occurred during the several billion lt yr journey, then it must be of an extremely small order. don't you agree?

How can a person possibly know the difference between the amount of blurring affecting a close up photograph and that of a long distance one unless the camera has been located there?

Being of the opinion that there have been no close up photographs of those distant galaxies I have no way of evaluating the extent of any blurring.

You may recall that when the HST was first operated, its images were found to be blurred despite the fact that their definition was superior to images of the same objects taken previously.

"Almost immediately after Hubble went into orbit, it became clear that something was wrong. While the pictures were clearer than those of ground-based telescopes, they weren't the pristine images promised. They were blurry."

http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/hubble_essentials/

That was rectified by astronauts at a cost of $8m.

In your opinion, should it have been impossible to determine whether the images were blurred or not?

"Time is what prevents everything from happening at once" - John Wheeler