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Insane Astronomy pic

Originally posted by: LordMorpheus
Is that a photo or an artist's rendition?

That's definitely a photo. The colors might not be completely accurate, but astronomers change the colors on images all the time to make them look cooler if they're going to be published in a magazine or something.
 
don't we wish we can travel there and explore it? Instead of seeing things thats a few hundred or thousand years old?
 
Originally posted by: Eeezee
Originally posted by: LordMorpheus
Is that a photo or an artist's rendition?

That's definitely a photo. The colors might not be completely accurate, but astronomers change the colors on images all the time to make them look cooler if they're going to be published in a magazine or something.

All astronomical images are black and white. They put different filters in the camera and composite them, but those crazy coloured images are definitely not what you'd see if you looked with the naked eye. Sure, that is really a redder area where the red is, but it's so dim you'd never see it, and the brightest spots would just look white.
 
Originally posted by: silverpig
All astronomical images are black and white. They put different filters in the camera and composite them, but those crazy coloured images are definitely not what you'd see if you looked with the naked eye. Sure, that is really a redder area where the red is, but it's so dim you'd never see it, and the brightest spots would just look white.
Most are. Some aren't, or rather, won't be. The Mars Science Lab will be capable of taking true color pictures in a single exposure, and I'm sure there may be other spacecraft capable of such a feat.

Spitzer images through a variety of infrared filters, that's why this image isn't true color.

 
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