by auroradude » Tue Dec 11, 2007 1:36 am
Let me take a stab at "scientifically reassigned colors".
I take it to mean that this image is in "false color". Some, if not all of the wavelengths that the image was recorded in were probably in parts of the spectrum not visible to us. i.e. in the ultraviolet spectrum. So then visible colors are assigned to the different wavelengths arbitrairily but perhaps to bring out the best contrast possible.
The bluish color, for instance, is assigned to emissions by oxygen. The reddish is assigned to hydrogen emissions. This would then allow a viewer to gleam science from the image knowing what gasses were located where by their "assigned" colors.
That the image is beautiful is perhaps just a by-product of the science and truly only in the eye of the beholder.
Let me take a stab at "scientifically reassigned colors".
I take it to mean that this image is in "false color". Some, if not all of the wavelengths that the image was recorded in were probably in parts of the spectrum not visible to us. i.e. in the ultraviolet spectrum. So then visible colors are assigned to the different wavelengths arbitrairily but perhaps to bring out the best contrast possible.
The bluish color, for instance, is assigned to emissions by oxygen. The reddish is assigned to hydrogen emissions. This would then allow a viewer to gleam science from the image knowing what gasses were located where by their "assigned" colors.
That the image is beautiful is perhaps just a by-product of the science and truly only in the eye of the beholder.