Seeing the Unseeable - Capturing an Image of a Black Hole

Explore the groundbreaking achievement of capturing the first-ever image of a black hole in this public lecture by Sheperd Doeleman. Delve into the science behind black holes, Einstein's theories, and the innovative Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project. Learn about the global collaboration of radio dishes and atomic clocks that formed an Earth-sized virtual telescope, enabling scientists to resolve and image supermassive black holes. Discover the details of the historic April 10, 2019 announcement, including the observed gravitational lensing that confirms General Relativity at a black hole's boundary. Gain insights into the technical challenges overcome, the first results obtained, and the future directions of black hole imaging. Follow the journey from theoretical predictions to practical observations, understanding concepts such as the Schwarzschild radius, strong gravitational lensing, and the black hole silhouette. Explore the EHT's expansion, baseline coverage, and the intricate imaging process that led to the final M87 black hole images. Conclude with a glimpse into the next-generation EHT and its potential for capturing dynamic black hole movies, pushing the boundaries of our understanding of these cosmic phenomena.

Intro
Seeing the Unseeable
Gravity & Einstein
Black Holes: A One-Way Door • Schwarzschild Radius 2GMC4.
Extremes of Matter
Strong GR: The Black Hole Silhouette
So you want to photograph a Black Hole Shadow.
Short Wavelength VLBI
EHT Baseline Coverage: M87
EHT Expansion: 2014-17 13mm VLBI Detections
Pacing Moore's Law
EHT Observations: April 2017
Imaging Teams
Imaging Comparison Workshop
Final M87 Images on April 11
Imaging with Earth Rotation Aperture A
Image-domain feature extraction
The ring give us the mass
next-generation EHT
ngEHT: next-generation Science
Next Generation: Movies