THE GREAT ASTRONOMY PHOTO IMAGING PROJECT

Day #2 Opening Question:

We'll continue working on our practice image using the Crescent Nebula. Here's an interesting question, many of us have started working on the SII version and are finding that there isn't much there... why must we continue to process that data nonetheless?

TUTORIALS: Go to our observing program website. Find your way to the Imaging page and you'll find the tutorials listed there.

ASTRO IMAGES:

Astronomers take images in black and white/grayscale. Which seems odd. But right in line with our unit in light and filters and such, we now see that it makes very good sense for HOW they do that:

  • Astronomers place a RED filter in front of the B/W camera which allows ONLY the red photons through and they take an image of the object

  • Astronomers place a BLUE filter in front of the B/W camera which allows ONLY the blue photons through and they take an image of the object

  • Astronomers place a GREEN filter in front of the B/W camera which allows ONLY the green photons through and they take an image of the object

  • Then they import those images into the software PHOTOSHOP and colorize them there according to the exact, specific wavelength of light that corresponds to the filters they used

  • Then they *painstakingly* work to bring out the features of that object by adjusting brightness, contrast, hue and other features (which can take weeks or even months!)

Through contacts I made working at the Mauna Kea Observatory years ago I was able to contact a lead photo analyst at NASA and he provided me with a bunch of original Hubble Data... YAY!

We'll pretend we are NASA Photo Analysts and we'll work to combine our artistic and scientific selves to create VERY COOL color pictures from that data

SOFTWARE:

Photoshop or some other software that allows you to do LAYERING

PIXLR.COM is free and is very photoshop-like, although MUCH easier to learn

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Please find your way to our GHHS Observing Program site

  • Go to student photos page
  • Then find and click on the menu icon and select "Raw Data"

 

We'll ALL practice with those pictures to start

But WAIT... how do we know which colors to use? Let's discuss

How do we find a color if we know the wavelength? In this case 555 nanometers... (Wolfram Alpha to the rescue!)

  • NOTE #1: it works BEST if you type in Nanometer (and NOT NM)
  • NOTE #2: scroll down a bit to see a color square with that color. Click on that color square to get MORE info on that color

Day #1 -- Practice

You'll need access to a Photoshop imaging program (it must support *layers*)

Photoshop is kinda spendy these days so I recommend using Pixlr.com (please select the expert version). IT's FREE!!!

Go to our observation page and find your way to the Student Pictures page.

From there, find the menu icon and click on "Raw Data"

  • Find the HA version of the Crescent Nebula
  • Work with your team to enhance that image
  • When you have a good looking image, work with your team to colorize that image to make it RED

Day #2 -- Practice continues

    • Finish your HA version of the Crescent Nebula
    • Be sure and save a copy to your Google Drive
    • Now do the same thing with the SII version of the Crescent Nebula, except this time you'll make that BLUE. Note-- there is VERY little of the Crescent Nebula in SII, but we have to process that anyway. Why is that?
    • Now do the same thing with OIII version of the Crescent Nebula and make that Green
    • Work with our MOST gracious and HUMBLE Observing Team Members to MERGE all three of those objects using layering!