Are black holes visible?

"Are black holes visible?"

Only via...

- accretion disks, with no surface interactions

- gravitational lensing

"However, this famous artists's rendering of a black circle distorting stars around it is not a real photograph, right?"

http://www.google.com/search?q=einstein+cross&lr=&...

... this is what a galaxy (with perhaps a central black hole) does to light from galaxies behind them.

A block hole would do much the same.

"Still, let us for a second assume that we could actually see a black hole with our naked eye as this perfect black sphere distorting a galaxy around it - my question is, is this black sphere the extent of the black hole itself (i.e. the object itself) or is it merely the extent of the Schwarzschild Radius, i.e. beyond which light can never come back?"

It will be a function of the Schwarzchild radius (2M), everything from 4M inwards will be black.

"If so, what is the distance between the schwarzschild radius and the actual "body" of the black hole itself?"

What is the "distance" between you and the Big Bang? What we call "distance", the interior experiences as "time" (all or in part).

Black holes are invisible since area is black and so is black holes, but when the black hole consumes a star, you will see that the light around the black hole. That is when you know anything strange is happening in the middle of all that mild. Not instantly. Nothing, now not even gentle can get away from a black gap. On the other hand, you can see one of the most fireworks going on close a black hole. As gas falls right into a black gap (perhaps coming from a local megastar), the gasoline will heat up and glow, becoming visible. Most commonly, not simplest obvious gentle, but also more vigorous photons like X-rays will probably be emitted by using the gas. What we'd assume to peer (if our telescopes could "zoom-in" ample) would be a glowing rotating disk of fabric, with the black hole down a the center of the disk.

So many Top Contributors, so many wrong answers.

The answer is YES,and Yes, light (or electromagnetic radiation), cannot escape a black hole, but that does not mean they are black, that only means light is not escaping (for the next trillion trillion years at least).

They are in fact visible. As an object falls, you for example, into a black hole you would appears to an outside observer to slow down, infinitely slow to the point where your image and all the bits of information that made you up is spread across the surface (schwarzchild or event horizon) at the rate of 1 square planck's length per bit.

I can see on the event horizon 's surface EVERYTHING that has ever fallen into the black hole.

A black hole, by definition, is not visible to the eye, though it might be detected by other means.

As there is no radiation from them, they appear 'black' to human eyes. It is the way one can "see" blackholes. Most other bodies in Space radiate their own light or reflect and thus appear 'non-black'.

No a black hole Can Not be seen because light can not escape from it.