----- Original Message -----
From: "john gleason" <dvj@No-Spam>
To: "The Astronomy Connection" <sf-bay-tac@No-Spam>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 4:39 PM
Subject: [TAC] Most Beautiful AstroPhoto!
> http://www.rc-astro.com/nebulae/m42_2004-01-27.htm
>
>
> Be sure to check out this image. Took my breath away. IMO, this is THE
most beautiful astrophoto done by anyone.
>
> While the color is "false", the detail in the channels are not - meaning
that the colors represent various emission lines.
>
> Be sure to click for the bigger image.
Russ has been doing some wonderful imaging, particularly since he got his
RC. I think this may be his finest yet.
He is also doing some wonderful code writing to assist imagers. Some of the
best I've seen and it is free. Instead of standalone applications, many of
his modules are plugins to Maxim, making them very convenient to use.
False color is a blast; that's about all I have been doing since the summer.
It is really handy to reveal latent structure. For example, if you use the
[SII] and Ha filters, then two very red colors are now separated. So instead
of having just slightly different shades of red in a big nebulous region,
you can see distinctly different colors where the Sulfur and Hydrogen are
separated. That technique is used extensively for characterizing ionization
structure of nebulae. Many of Hubble's shots are done using the same
technique, including the well known "Pillars of Creation".