Hubble Images: 'Shopped'?

How Hubble images are created: http://hubblesite.org/gallery/behind_the_pictures/

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/ContraPoints

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• hubble
• space
• telescope
• Hubble Space Telescope
• images
• how
• made
• created
• creating
• photoshop
• shopped
• edited
• color
• real
• fake
• are
• galaxy
• pictures
• science
• knowledge
• two
• minutes
• spiral
• ngc3982
• data
• image
• production
• HubbleSite
• ngc
• 3982

[resonantdave]

In an objective reality, there IS a way something looks, regardless of anything's ability to see it.

[ContraPoints]

@resonantdave What could it possibly mean for something to "look like" something to no particular eye, from no particular direction or perspective, and filtered through no particular conceptual map?

[4jonah]

I was always under the impression that while colors are manually added, they indicate temperature and chemical composition; that is, colors show where hydrogen and nitrogen may be rather than being arbitrarily added because it's pretty

[ContraPoints]

@4jonah They do represent actual data, but the much of the "prettyness" of the image is contributed by the way in which the editors choose to represent them.

[Blackmark52]

Your interpretation of the Photoshop work on those images is completely off. Comparing that work to an underwear model is entirely bogus. The Hubble images aren't doctored to hide anything or to misrepresent anything at all. They are processed to show you what they could look like if you could see them. REMEMBER: some of the components of these composite pictures are taking in wavelengths that the human eye can't see. The only way to put all the information into one shot is to colour code them.

[synchronium24]

@ContraPoints Holy crap! I posted the Nietzsche comment before watching the video, solely based on the comments. WIN!

[synchronium24]

@ContraPoints " What could it possibly mean for something to "look like" something to no particular eye..." You've been reading too much Nietzsche, haven't you?

[BlindSoothsayer]

Humans evolved naturally, humans invented photoshop and telescopes, ergo Hubble images are still "natural."

[mathenotebook]

The colors aren't always pulled out of thin air.  They sometimes approximate what we would see if our eyes were as powerful as a telescope and these pictures are beautiful.

The color schemes are designed to show aspects that would be invisible to our eyes.

Also, it's a pure accident of evolution that we perceive colors as we do and in the frequency range we do.

[RoySchl]

@ChrissyoSpace yeah sorry... raw was the wrong word, implying that i want the data directly after measurement... what i meant was, give me one picture for every kind of measurement (xray, infrared and so on)... and yes i know that those use a spectrum of frequencys and are therefor kind of composite images too. the only reason to color and or composite different data together should be that you then can see stuff you could not otherwise, and i don't think that is the case here.

[AidanTAKFW]

this is setting unrealistic standards for healthy young galaxies who see these images on the cosmic magazine stands and find themselves self-conscious about their dreariness ;)

[FemmeRadicale]

So it's basically just a graph with a key that we weren't given. And some people find that data beautiful, and simultaneously misinterpret it, is that a problem? If so, then it seems your problem would either be with NASA not properly educating people on what they're seeing or everyone else for not being an astrophysicist. Perhaps they were taking a cue from Neil Tyson and trying to make science appealing in *some* way so people will at least vote to fund a space program. I don't feel deceived.

[eragon2121]

@resonantdave That's not true. There is an objective way something IS but not an objective way something LOOKS. Looking by definition means it is subjective.

[lovingsingleton]

Where can I find that quote from nietzche?