NASA Shows the 'Real Picture'

You’ve marveled at all those brilliant looking images NASA puts up at regular intervals. We did, too. But this comes as news that does seem difficult to digest.

Spot the difference

According to reports, the images that the Hubble’s camera captures of the several galaxies and constellations aren’t entirely true! Well, yes! If reports are to be believed then several hours of photoshop-ing go into the making of that spectacular looking picture. NASA recently released a video that depicts the timeline of one of such picture being converted from a dull black-and-white to a vibrant hue.

The image in question is that of NGC 3982, a spiral galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major that is almost 68 million light years away from earth. The image let out was made using about seven grayscale images that three Hubble cameras captured. These images then went through a series of photoshop stages like scaling, rotating, aligning, colour processing, et al which amounted to labour of around 10 hours.

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Scientists, however, explain that photoshop-ing these images doesn’t necessarily mean faking the whole thing. The Hubble cameras, they explained, render pictures only in black-and-white. These pictures by themselves prove inadequate when it comes to mentioning details. Hence, a little work on these images makes for better viewing and detailing.