How Adobe and NASA «photoshop» Star

Space is very, very beautiful. But his pictures are not always so. To get a true and vivid images of distant galaxies and nebulae, NASA experts and Adobe applied Herculean efforts. Why is it necessary and why a good picture of stars so difficult, we understand together.

Even the most beautiful nebulae, and star clusters universe require retouching. And how would we not fascinated by the possibilities of modern technology such as the telescope "Hubble" or rover "Kyuriositi" photographs taken by these devices go through the time-consuming processing. And only then published by space agencies.

The most simple, something to specialists Adobe's work - gluing multiple photos into a single panoramic image. For example, a picture of the Andromeda galaxy - one of the most impressive. It showcases more than 100 million stars. To create this image, it was necessary to glue together more than 7000 pictures taken with the telescope "Hubble". I recommend you watch it in full size.

However, in most cases, it is still more difficult.

Robert Hurt, astronomer and Photoshop expert, working at the California Institute of Technology. He is involved in processing images, transforming the information from the devices of the space into something visible and understandable. Robert receives the raw data - in fact, a photograph taken in the infrared spectrum. It looks like something in the gray shades, and is completely different from what the audience NASA. Experts decode the information, assigning certain objects in the picture visible to the human eye hue. Thus, the work of Robert is a visual translation of the information in the infrared spectrum to red tongue, blue and green hues.

An illustrative example - processing images of the Orion Nebula. The data is processed in turn. Blue color - the area with the highest temperature, green and red - cooler regions.

Hurt says the image that they create must not only be beautiful and visual, but also true from a scientific point of view. And the problem is not only in processing, optics itself is able to create a false image. So, the camera often suffers from artifacts that look like the real space objects in the eyes of the layman. Robert says that a lot of time is spent on it to clear the pictures of such interference, because no one in Adobe and NASA does not want people to think, "Wow, what a strange thing floating around out there among the stars and nebulae" - when she was actually there not.

The end result of this huge work - "heavy", multigigabyte image file containing a lot of information layers with different telescopes.

Here is the photo shows the M104, or the Sombrero galaxy. The final image looks quite harmonious, but in fact his "collected" by using an infrared photo taken Telescope "Spitzer" and a picture made "Hubble."

Work Robert Herta process consists roughly thereby. He gets the original data - HDR-images of space objects. It then uses the information from the same regions, resulting in other devices - for example, "Hubble" telescope or an infrared "Spitzer". Superimposing images and restoring parts of a complete picture, Hurt creates the final image. It is both scientifically correct and sharp, bright, clear to the public and, of course, infinitely beautiful.

Based on materials The Verge and Adobe.com.