How scientists colorize photos of space

[Music] this is all the light in the universe that we can see it's just a fraction of what's out there most frequencies of light are actually invisible to us the light we can see appears red at its lowest frequencies and violet at its highest this is called the visible spectrum and we see it because cells in our eyes called cones interpret light reflecting off of objects we have three different types of cones that are sensitive to long medium and short wavelengths of light which roughly correspond to red green and blue on the visible spectrum these are the primary colors of light every other color is some combination of these three and that combination is the guiding principle and colorizing black and white images this portrait was taken in 1911 I know you came here for space photos we're getting there I promise it's one of the first examples of color photography and it's actually three black-and-white photos composited together Russian chemist Serge apricot and Gorski took three identical shots of this man Alencon using filters for specific colors of light one allowed red light to pass through one allowed green and one allowed blue you can really see how effective this filter system is when you compare the red and blue exposures look how bright Khan's blue robe is in the photo on the right meaning more of that color light passed through the filter dyeing and combining the three negatives gives you this all right you get the idea so let's take it into space the Hubble Space Telescope has been orbiting Earth since 1990 expanding human vision into deep space and giving us images like this one the thing is every Hubble image you see started out black and white that's because Hubble's main function is to measure the brightness of light reflecting off objects in space which is clearest in black and white the color is added later just like the portrait of Alencon except today scientists use computer programs like Photoshop let's use this photo of Saturn as an example filters separate light into long medium and short wavelengths this is called broadband filtering since it targets general ranges of light each of the three black and white images are then assigned a color based on their position on the visible spectrum the combined result is a true color image or what the object would look like if your eyes were as powerful as a telescope like Hubble okay now one with Jupiter see how combining the red and green brings in yellow and then adding blue bring cyan and magenta to fully represent the visible spectrum watch this animation two more times and I think you'll see it great now let's add another level of complexity seeing an object as it would appear to our eyes isn't the only way to use color scientists also use it to map out how different gases interact in the universe to form galaxies and nebulae Hubble can record very narrow bands of light coming from individual elements like oxygen and carbon and use color to track their presence in an image this is called narrowband filtering the most common application of narrowband filtering isolates light from hydrogen sulfur and oxygen three key building blocks of stars Hubble's most famous example of this is called the pillars of creation which captured huge towers of gas and dust forming new star systems but this isn't a true color image like the one of Saturn from before it's more of a colorized map hydrogen and sulfur are both seen naturally in red light and oxygen is more blue coloring these gases as we'd actually see them would produce red red and cyan and the pillars of creation would look more like this not as useful for visual analysis in order to get a full-color image and visually separate the sulfur from the hydrogen scientists assign the elements to red green and blue according to their place in the chromatic order basically that means that since oxygen has the highest frequency of the three it's assigned to blue and since hydrogen is red but a higher frequency than sulfur it gets green the result is a full-color image mapping out the process by which our own solar system might have formed [Music] the Hubble Space Telescope can record light outside of the visible spectrum - in the ultraviolet and near-infrared bands an infrared image of the pillars of creation for example looks very different the longer wavelengths penetrate the clouds of dust and gas that block out visible light frequencies revealing clusters of stars within it and beyond these images showing in visible light are colored the same way multiple filtered exposures are assigned a color based on their place in the chromatic order lowest frequencies get red middle get green highest get blue which could beg the question are the colors real yes and no the color represents real data and it's used to visualize the chemical makeup of an object or an area in space helping scientists see how gases interact thousands of light-years away giving us critical information about how stars and galaxies form over time so even if it isn't technically how our eyes would perceive these objects it's not made up either the color creates beautiful images but more importantly it shows us the invisible parts of our universe you

Channel: Vox

Views: 1,451,296

Rating: 4.955421 out of 5

Keywords: Hubble, Color, Vox.com, vox, explain, explainer, photography, science, rgb, red green blue, pillars of creation, space, astronomy, technology, hubble telecsope, hubble telescope images, hubble documentary, space hubble, telescope, deep field hubble, universe, nasa, hubble 3d, hubble pictures, outer space, space engineers, color photography, colorize photos, colorizing photos, colorized photo, b&w photo, photos of space

Id: WSG0MnmUsEY

Length: 5min 48sec (348 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 01 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Vanilla_Gorilla_LA]

Can anyone help me out with TL;DW for now?

[u/mortalwombat-]

I have always wondered if those photos were true to what our eye would see. Thanks for posting this!

[u/doctorcain]

That’s was one of the most insanely beautiful and informative things I’ve seen on the interwebs in a very long time! Truly amazing.

Can’t wait to make my friends feel like pieces of shit for not knowing this.

[u/Trashie-Panda]

Holy. Shit.

I’ve always wondered how they came up with “artist rendition” of space photog. I totally blew it off thinking it was just whatever some one individual thought it should be. But this totally changes everything. Awesome. Thank you.

[u/[deleted]]

Wow, did not expect this from vox

[u/Ign3usR3x]

Yes this is me being being nitpicky, but the title is misleading.

I do astrophotography and I wouldn't consider myself a "scientist". I'm sure they use the methods as well, but its just not the right title.

[u/ConfusedOwlet]

Despite that being Vox, that was actually pretty cool. I had no idea how they actually did that.

Though I have a question, what shade of red/green/blue do they use, or is there a shade that everyone agrees is just "red", prior to using Photoshop/other photo editing tools? (Since those allow someone to use the same shade each and every time). I would think that some could be slightly different, as making the exact same shade of red (or green, or blue) each time could be difficult.

But I could also just be over thinking that, tbh, nor do I know the process of how dyes are made to create colors like/for that.

Either way, it was still interesting.

Edit: Okay, so I was basically called out about this in the comments. While I answered it there, might as well put it up here too.

I have nothing against Vox. My opinion on them is mostly due to the people around me not liking them, so I assumed that they weren't that great. I know, I know, I should (and will now) do my own research before forming an opinion, but I also don't know anyone who hasn't gotten their opinion of something, whether that be a news outlet, a movie, a book, what have you, tainted by the opinions of those around them.

Just wanted to apologize about that. Def my bad, and I'll work on it in the future.

[u/andrewsghost]

I sincerely expected to see a room full of stereotypical "scientists" in labcoats and ties laying on their bellies in the denn coloring pictures with markers.

[u/_Cheezus]

I literally just finished watching it a few minutes ago lol