Starship Asterisk*

Chris Peterson wrote: So in this image, the brightness has been very highly compressed into the narrow dynamic range of the output device. The result is an image that totally misrepresents the optical structure, but at the same time allows the entire structure to be seen at once. You can have images optimized for photometry, for structure, for color, and many other things. But whatever you do to emphasize any one particular feature, you probably lose something else.

Chris Peterson wrote: It's why almost no astronomical image can ever look like something our eyes would actually see.

Beyond wrote:Yeah, in his brightness lessening of Messier 104, it now looks like a dusty pancake with a small uncooked spot in the center.
So all that brightness comes from that small place in the center?

MargaritaMc wrote:

geckzilla wrote:

MargaritaMc wrote:http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040513.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100614.html
I find it interesting to compare two earlier Apods of the Red Rectangle with today's re-processed version.
The colour in the 2010 version is more pink-ish than the earlier and later versions. Has anyone any idea why this would be so?

Because the same data can be given any color balance one prefers. If you took a photo of the sky, you could adjust the color to be warmer or cooler depending on your personal taste. It's the same thing. But depending on how you assign the colors for individual filters it could be easier or more difficult to read the image so even though the colors could be wildly different they are usually presented similarly. You can tell all three versions of the Rectangle were given similar treatment.

Thanks, Geckzilla.
I possibly worded my original post poorly, because what I was finding really fascinating was to have each of the the images up in different tabs and flip quickly between them, seeing how the same data had been processed differently. The 2004 image and today's have similar colours, and it intrigued me that the 2010 one was mapped to be slightly pinkish. But this is simply a personal aesthetic choice?
Also, today's Apod is far clearer, sharper. This interests me, especially since watching some videos from Hubble which show something of the possibilities involved in processing. So, you see, I have the frustrating mix of (a) finding astrophotography fascinating and (b) having no personal experience of doing it.

Margarita

Chris Peterson wrote:

geckzilla wrote:

MargaritaMc wrote:Also, today's Apod is far clearer, sharper. This interests me, especially since watching some videos from Hubble which show something of the possibilities involved in processing. So, you see, I have the frustrating mix of (a) finding astrophotography fascinating and (b) having no personal experience of doing it.

http://laurashoe.com/2011/08/25/friends ... h-clarity/

Extreme sharpening algorithms are commonly applied to astronomical images- extreme enough to introduce all sorts of image artifacts. This is because aesthetics are not usually the goal, but these techniques can bring out true structure that would not otherwise be visible. So in the case of astronomical images where elucidating structure is important, friends most certainly do encourage friends to use extreme sharpening.

ArcBird wrote:Sigh... "rectangle" is just because it's viewed from this angle, it is 2 bowl shaped magnetic fields opposite from one another.

Ann wrote:I'm very happy with my software, Guide, and I really like its graphics. Once, however, I found a star which, on magnification, seemed to be surrounded by a multitude of brilliant points. I thought that the star was sitting in a cluster. It wasn't. The diffraction spikes around the star in the photo that must have been involved in producing the graphics had been "translated" by the graphics into a swarm of cluster-like points of light surrounding the star.

I haven't found a similar effect around any other star in Guide, not that I can remember anyway.

Geckzilla wrote:
Some structures aren't even there, though... The extreme glows and shadows along edges can make it look like there's a halo of stars, some light, or some shadowy structure where none is present.

geckzilla wrote:Some structures aren't even there, though... The extreme glows and shadows along edges can make it look like there's a halo of stars, some light, or some shadowy structure where none is present.

Chris Peterson wrote:

geckzilla wrote:

MargaritaMc wrote:Also, today's Apod is far clearer, sharper. This interests me, especially since watching some videos from Hubble which show something of the possibilities involved in processing. So, you see, I have the frustrating mix of (a) finding astrophotography fascinating and (b) having no personal experience of doing it.

http://laurashoe.com/2011/08/25/friends ... h-clarity/

Extreme sharpening algorithms are commonly applied to astronomical images- extreme enough to introduce all sorts of image artifacts. This is because aesthetics are not usually the goal, but these techniques can bring out true structure that would not otherwise be visible. So in the case of astronomical images where elucidating structure is important, friends most certainly do encourage friends to use extreme sharpening.

MargaritaMc wrote:I possibly worded my original post poorly, because what I was finding really fascinating was to have each of the the images up in different tabs and flip quickly between them, seeing how the same data had been processed differently. The 2004 image and today's have similar colours, and it intrigued me that the 2010 one was mapped to be slightly pinkish. But this is simply a personal aesthetic choice?

geckzilla wrote:

MargaritaMc wrote:Also, today's Apod is far clearer, sharper. This interests me, especially since watching some videos from Hubble which show something of the possibilities involved in processing. So, you see, I have the frustrating mix of (a) finding astrophotography fascinating and (b) having no personal experience of doing it.

http://laurashoe.com/2011/08/25/friends ... h-clarity/

MargaritaMc wrote:Also, today's Apod is far clearer, sharper. This interests me, especially since watching some videos from Hubble which show something of the possibilities involved in processing. So, you see, I have the frustrating mix of (a) finding astrophotography fascinating and (b) having no personal experience of doing it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Engels wrote:

[b][color=#FF0000][size=150]Frederick Engels[/size][/color][/b]

---

<<Friedrich (Frederick) Engels was born on 28 November 1820 in Barmen, Prussia (now Wuppertal, Germany). At the time, Barmen was an expanding industrial metropole and Frederick was the eldest son of a wealthy German cotton manufacturer. His father, Friederich, Sr., was an evangelical. Accordingly, Engels was raised Christian Pietist. As he grew up, his relationship with his parents became strained because of his atheist beliefs. Parental disapproval of his revolutionary activities is recorded in an October 1848 letter from his mother, Elizabeth Engels. In this letter his mother berates him for having "really gone too far" and "begged" him "to proceed no further.". "You have paid more heed to other people, to strangers, and have taken no account of your mother's pleas. God alone knows what I have felt and suffered of late. I was trembling when I picked up the newspaper and saw therein that a warrant was out for my son's arrest." At the time this letter was written, Frederick Engels was in hiding in Brussels, Belgium, soon to make his way to Switzerland and then, in 1849, back into Germany for participation in the Baden and Palatinate revolutionary uprising. Whilst at Bremen, Engels began reading the philosophy of Hegel, whose teachings had dominated German philosophy at the time. In September 1838, he published his first work, a poem entitled The Bedouin, in the Bremisches Conversationsblatt No. 40.>>

geckzilla wrote:

MargaritaMc wrote:http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040513.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100614.html
I find it interesting to compare two earlier Apods of the Red Rectangle with today's re-processed version.
The colour in the 2010 version is more pink-ish than the earlier and later versions. Has anyone any idea why this would be so?

Because the same data can be given any color balance one prefers. If you took a photo of the sky, you could adjust the color to be warmer or cooler depending on your personal taste. It's the same thing. But depending on how you assign the colors for individual filters it could be easier or more difficult to read the image so even though the colors could be wildly different they are usually presented similarly. You can tell all three versions of the Rectangle were given similar treatment.

MargaritaMc wrote:http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040513.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100614.html
I find it interesting to compare two earlier Apods of the Red Rectangle with today's re-processed version.
The colour in the 2010 version is more pink-ish than the earlier and later versions. Has anyone any idea why this would be so?