PC Pals Forum

General Discussion => Science & Nature => Topic started by: Simon on January 11, 2009, 12:11

Title: Is this real?
Post by: Simon on January 11, 2009, 12:11

Probably one for Sam or Clive, but is this real or computer generated?

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090111.html

Title: Re: Is this real?
Post by: Rik on January 11, 2009, 12:54

Or both. ;D

Title: Re: Is this real?
Post by: Clive on January 11, 2009, 14:26

The blurb claims it's a genuine photo although it looks too artificial to be true.  Over to you Sam!   ;D

Title: Re: Is this real?
Post by: Rik on January 11, 2009, 15:50

It's made up from a mosaic of different photos, Clive, 35 I think. It's then contrast enhanced and artificially coloured. At what point that becomes art, rather than photography, I'm not sure but I feel it has gone past the point...

Title: Re: Is this real?
Post by: Clive on January 11, 2009, 16:05

I agree Rik.  The only bit that excited me was the pale blue dot which may have even been genuine!   :D

Title: Re: Is this real?
Post by: David on January 11, 2009, 18:15

 :lol: Its good to see you exited Clive.....careful though  :devil:

Title: Re: Is this real?
Post by: Rik on January 11, 2009, 18:22

I thought I might find you here.  ;D

Title: Re: Is this real?
Post by: David on January 11, 2009, 18:28

 :thumbs: :shh: :hee-hee: so intuitive..............or Im very shallow  :)x dont answer the is  :o:

Title: Re: Is this real?
Post by: sam on January 11, 2009, 21:23

its real... well as Rik said a composite. Not sure its so much art really, all they are doing is exagerating different wavelengths, the information is still there. I guess it is art for presentation (and someone will have probably spent ages tweaking it), but the information was there - and indeed the exageration did have a scientifc use (to study the variation acress the image). The idea of mosaiking, or composite making is used all the time in astronomy. Essentially its normally better to take two 5 minute exposures of some object than one 10 minute (for a number of reasons, that I can go into if we want).. but its scientifically fine todo.

I do mosaking all the time, with the radio telescopes I use (the GMRT in particular) we take images of a couple of degrees of the sky which means the sky is not flat, and so to produce the image by combining the power from each antenna we have to deal with the fact that they sky is not flat... this causes some awful mathematics, so to avoid this we cut the data up into blocks, make the images seperately and at the end stitch them back together.

Title: Re: Is this real?
Post by: Simon on January 11, 2009, 22:55

It's a stunning image, however it's composed.  :)

Title: Re: Is this real?
Post by: David on January 11, 2009, 23:11

What Sam and Simon said  ;D

Title: Re: Is this real?
Post by: mistybear on January 20, 2009, 08:46

It certainly is stunning.  :)