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by TheSpiceIsLife 3633 days ago
It's cool hey! That image covers the same area as approximately four full moons, 2.3 arcminutes by 2 arcminutes. [1]

So, back of the envelope calculation multiplying 5500 by the area of the full sky (as though the earth were invisible) we get ~242 billion galaxies, which is close to what this[2] claims at 100 to 200 billion galaxies.

Space is big.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_eXtreme_Deep_Field

2. http://www.space.com/25303-how-many-galaxies-are-in-the-univ...

1 comments

The moon is about 30 arcminutes across (half a degree) [0], which is considerably larger than the area of the Extreme Deep Field. But the estimate of the number of galaxies is okay.

The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (of which the Extreme Deep Field is a part) is one thirteen-millionth part of the full sky. [1]

The full sky is about 41,253 square degrees in size. [2]

I think the HXDF is one 32-millionth of the full sky. If so, multiplying 32 million by the 5500 galaxies in the XDF gives on the order of 200 billion galaxies, as you said.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_diameter

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Ultra-Deep_Field

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_degree

Yes, you're right, thanks for the correction: the Extreme Deep Field image is smaller than the moon. I neglected to click on the image at [1], thereby missing the detail in the full size image[2].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_eXtreme_Deep_Field 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_eXtreme_Deep_Field#/med...