Day 4 at .Astronomy was all about visualisation. Astronomy is arguably the most naturally photogenic of the sciences, even though we don’t know what much of the stuff out there actually is. As technological advances enable wider, deeper, higher-resolution observations, astronomical data become increasingly complex. But data is not knowledge, and the information we can extract from these large multi-dimensional datasets is limited by our ability to visualise and mentally process this complexity. Unfortunately, PhDs don’t give us extra powers over everyone else. Our minds are wired the same as everyone else’s – we just learn how to manipulate data and present them in novel ways that make them make sense to our limited brain.

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