I was totally Wrong about those 'overprocessed' Hubble images

For years I rolled my eyes at the super colorful Hubble photos. Thought it was fake, like they were just painting space. Then I watched a talk by the imaging lead at STScI where she showed the raw data files vs the final image. The colors come from different wavelengths like oxygen and hydrogen lines. They assign visible colors to invisible light so we can actually SEE the science. Felt like a dummy after that. Has anyone else had that 'aha' moment with processed astrophotography?

2 comments

2 Comments

james_martin931mo ago

Dude, same. I argued with my buddy for like twenty minutes that they were just photoshopping nebulas to look cool. Then I saw the raw data and realized I was the one who looked like a clown. Now I'm the guy defending the image processing at parties.

beth_baker691mo ago

Oh man, @james_martin93 you're describing me like two years ago. I was convinced they were just painting over the data to make it look prettier and calling it science. Then I downloaded some raw FITS files from a telescope archive and tried to stack them myself in DeepSkyStacker (took me like three hours of tutorials). Realizing how much information is actually in there, and that the color mapping is just making invisible wavelengths visible, totally flipped my perspective. Now I'm the one explaining why those "false colors" are actually more honest than what our eyes can see.