APOD: In the Center of the Trifid Nebula (2013 Jan 28)

[robgendler]

Luminance in this regard refers to "detail". The luminance or luminosity portion of an image provides the detail. The luminance can be an unfiltered set of exposures which is a common method among amateur astrophotographers however any narrowband or wideband (or combination thereof) set of data can be used as luminance in an image to provide detail. In this case I combined mostly 6565nm h-alpha data sets from the Subaru to provide luminance (detail) against Martin's mapped color image. In addition I layered Hubble data (narrowband SII, OIII, Ha) onto the image. I hope this clarifies the method I used to combine the data sources.

[DavidLeodis]

Luminance in this regard refers to "detail". The luminance or luminosity portion of an image provides the detail. The luminance can be an unfiltered set of exposures which is a common method among amateur astrophotographers however any narrowband or wideband (or combination thereof) set of data can be used as luminance in an image to provide detail. In this case I combined mostly 6565nm h-alpha data sets from the Subaru to provide luminance (detail) against Martin's mapped color image. In addition I layered Hubble data (narrowband SII, OIII, Ha) onto the image. I hope this clarifies the method I used to combine the data sources.

Thanks you Robert for your reply to my query about luminance. Your help is appreciated.

[Chappy]

Actually, when I initially saw this picture it reminded me of the Flux Capacitor from Back to the Future.