What does a black hole look like close up?

[parallaxicality]

Would it look black? Or would it be obscured by the high-energy matter swirling around it?

I've often imagined that, since the event horizon freezes all moments that occur near it, the area around a black hole would be a kind of virtual museum, preserving the images of everything that had passed into it over billions of years.

[Dragon Star]

It would be black, but around the Event Horizon and into the accretion disk would probably be brighter from matter being crunched and bending light from other stars.

Wiki has a possible representation of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Black_Hole_Milkyway.jpg

[Dragon Star]

I've often imagined that, since the event horizon freezes all moments that occur near it, the area around a black hole would be a kind of virtual museum, preserving the images of everything that had passed into it over billions of years.

Well, I don't know a whole lot about that really, but my guess would be that if it is a rotating black hole, tidal forces will be pulling light appart...so there would be no images...expecially sense the light would never reach the observer.

[antoniseb]

If you could find a black hole with nothing substantial swirling around it, it would look black, but the stars you could see around the edge of it would look distorted, so you chould tell something strange was there. This assumes that you are looking at it from far enough away that your eyes would stay in one piece.

[Celestial Mechanic]

[Snip!]I've often imagined that, since the event horizon freezes all moments that occur near it, the area around a black hole would be a kind of virtual museum, preserving the images of everything that had passed into it over billions of years.
The only thing is, while a remote observer would never see anything cross the event horizon because of this effect, the electromagnetic radiation from the object would be redshifted into oblivion so that not even a frozen image of the object would remain.

[RussT]

The only thing is, while a remote observer would never see anything cross the event horizon because of this effect, the electromagnetic radiation from the object would be redshifted into oblivion so that not even a frozen image of the object would remain.

I have seen where they are showing how they 'track' the star movement very close to the SMBH (I believe in our galaxy), and when the results came back like this, they new that the stars were traveling at high velocity, and the left was blue shifted, so it had to be a black hole accretion disc they were orbiting in. How does that fit with the above?

The ===== is representing the staggered image they see and immediately know that it means the above. the aaaaaa is so they will stay staggered when I post it.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ===== aaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ===== aaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Also, if time is frozen at the event horizon, for a far observer (us), so everything is effectively 'stuck' in the accretion disc, from our observational viewpoint, does that mean that the Matter keeps building up on the accretion disc over the eons? What are we really seeing there, from the accretion disc and outward?

[JohnD]

If the BH was in front of a star field, wouldn't there be 'rays', the light of individual stars pulled out towards the BH? Would such 'rays' be centered on the BH?

I've seen simulations that looked more like a dense lens being passed acros the star field, but it was just, er, smeary.

John

[publiusr]

It would be black, but around the Event Horizon and into the accretion disk would probably be brighter from matter being crunched and bending light from other stars.

Wiki has a possible representation of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Black_Hole_Milkyway.jpg

Spooky.