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12/01/2005 08:59:18 AM · #1 |
Check out today's Astronomy Picture of the Day. It's a collage created from many different photos of the sun taken at different wavelengths. Quite a work of art, IMO.
Message edited by author 2005-12-01 09:54:19. |
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12/01/2005 09:44:31 AM · #2 |
Yep, SOHO has been a very successful project. It makes pretty pictures too :)
-Chad |
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12/01/2005 09:45:13 AM · #3 |
Cool mosaic! I love solar images.
Here's another beautiful image that was just released in the last 24 hours. This one is from Hubble, the highest resolution version is absolutely phenomenal, and this was with the older WFPC2 camera... kinda cool abstract art, does Mother Nature retain copyright?
Message edited by author 2005-12-01 09:46:09.
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12/01/2005 10:20:12 AM · #4 |
I've heard in the past that the guys who put the Hubble pics together (and other astro pics) will jack around with the colors to make it more "pretty" for the public, and not necessary refect what it really looks like. If so, that sucks.
Have y'all heard that?
-Chad |
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12/01/2005 01:11:35 PM · #5 |
Yes, I've heard it, and yes, it's true.
But it begs the much larger question, "what DOES it really look like?" This question is appropriate in all photography and post processing, but even more apropos in astronomy, where many of the objects viewed by Hubble and other telescopes are so faint and diffuse as to be invisible or virtually invisible to the unaided eye anyway. Since publishing pictures of faint nothings would't be very popular or useful, they use the technology available (and most of them use Photoshop at some point) to enhance, stretch, and otherwise extract from their data every possible advantage. They make use of different colors to represent different compositions, for example, of an emission nebula, or the bands of Jupiter's atmosphere. It doesn't suck, it's part of the process of making a picture. Everyone does it when they prepare a picture for display or printing.
Originally posted by cpurser:
I've heard in the past that the guys who put the Hubble pics together (and other astro pics) will jack around with the colors to make it more "pretty" for the public, and not necessary refect what it really looks like. If so, that sucks.
Have y'all heard that?
-Chad |
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12/01/2005 03:05:17 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by strangeghost:
Yes, I've heard it, and yes, it's true.
But it begs the much larger question, "what DOES it really look like?" |
Since a great deal of the information comes from radiation in wavelengths [b]invisible[/i] to us, it seems to me they can have carte blanche to translate those into whatever visible colors best show off the detail and structure.
At the other end of the limits of visibility, microscopists routinely stain specimens to better see the details. |
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12/01/2005 03:16:54 PM · #7 |
GeneralE and strangeghost make great points. Hubble is built to see in wavelengths we cannot. What the astronomers usually do is to assign colors to the emissionlines of various ions, as this gives tremendous information and insight into the makeup and state of the gas composing a nebula.
In additionally, when you view such a nebbula visually, the eye will not see much color at all, since the illumination is far too weak to really trigger our color vison effectively. Asking whether such an image reflects "true" colors is thus more or less a non-sequitur.
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12/01/2005 03:29:50 PM · #8 |
I'm totally in agreement with this. Any time you go far out (extreme astronomy) or far in (extreme micro-molecular stuff) color is a fiction. It has no meaning except in that it can be used descriptively, in the sense that Kirbic points out.
R. |
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12/01/2005 04:03:10 PM · #9 |
Just wanted to add that where astronomical images are concerned, you often see "true colors" where star fields are concerned, since it makes sense to render them in that way.
With planetary images, you see it both ways. False color is often used to highlight temperature or compositional differences in atmoshperes or on surfaces, but true colors are often presented as well. It pays to read the details to see whether the intent of the image is an "accurate" visual representation or a scientific investigation.
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12/01/2005 04:46:23 PM · #10 |
Great comments guys. Y'all are right - if we can't see the wavelengths, then they have to do something.
Like in M42, through my scope, it doesn't look red at all, since our eyes aren't sensitive to that wavelength.
-Chad |
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