Are NASA Photo Colors Fake? | All about Mono and Color Cameras for Astrophotography
🎥 Mono vs. Color Cameras in Astrophotography 🌌 In this video, I dive into the differences between mono and color cameras in astrophotography, showing how to create vibrant, detai...
What color are saying is "correct"? "Correct color" is relative. The user can see a different color than the next user and even 2 people with the same vision and cone structure will still see a differnet color 100 million miles from where it was generated vs standing the galaxy. Thats why picking a "legend" or key by Molecule is the only way that scales (hubble).
the cone argument doesn't change anything with regards to the need for color calibration. What correct color calibration achieves actually, is that a person with (any!!) combination of cones in their eyes will see the image on the display the same way they would see it in the scope, if the subject were of course a lot brighter. On a purely theoretical level if someone's eyes are unusually sensitive to the blue color, doing the "correct" color calibration will ensure that they will also see the photograph as predominantly blue. The goal (when observing in natural colors) is to stay true to reality
@the_space_koalaagree, my ignorance shows. On the second part, the color seen in the scope is not the color seen at the origin. If we are modifying the image via software and can't see the color at all via the glass then do you represent the color at origin or after light-years of shift?
So, because i use an OSC camera, I’m not a “serious” astrophotographer?? Elitism much?!
please don't take single words out of context. I said "there is a very good reason why many serious astrophotographers prefer monochrome sensors". In no way shape or form did I claim OSC users are not serious, and there is 0 elitism as I went on to say I personally use both mono and OSC cameras
I think, one important benefit of (L)RGB mono imaging is, that color aberration is reduced, as you can shoot at the perfect focus for each of the color bandpasses.
Astrophotography is an art form, and one sees the object the same way, hence why so many versions of the same object. Like an artist none see the object the same, and add their own view of that object. See the Orion Nebula online and see so many versions of the same object
There are many directions, and I think we all have artistic freedom, but I believe as long as we call it astrophotography, we should respect some ground rules - mostly the laws of physics. We should not erase/generate data just modulate the existing one. You can find amazing and very examples of this online
You captured me with your beautiful eyes.
Excellent explanation, thank you.
I don’t know what you did that changed the light here compared to your video and field of view with all the math with the lighting here so much better I think that camera quality is better, or at least, it seems that way to me.
I was experimenting a lot as I was just starting out with these videos!
I’ve never understood why image editing software does not allow to map each filter to a specific wavelength, instead of an entire channel Maybe there is some software limitations, but that should be possible to overcome
On the recording side you have this information if you use narrowband filters on a monochromatic sensor. However, our hardware (think screens) is only able to display colors as a combination of the colors red green and blue. We do not have pixels that can light up in any given color, just these 3 for the most part. We can get any color we want by combining intensities of these 3. I hope this makes sense
@ yes and no. Say I shoot Ha, OIII and 390nm narrowband. Say I want to have Ha and OIII exactly matched to their wavelengths, but want to map the 390NM to 420nm in order to have a “realistic” colour for my image. The software should be able to do that, and screens can show millions of colours (think wavelengths), so I don’t see why this is not possible. I have actually asked the Pixinsight guys a few years ago and their answer was the nobody had ever asked them that question, which to me is even more puzzling! So I reckon it’s not a hardware challenge, just a “we’ve always done things this way” kind of response. Imagine not having to colour calibrate your images with the tedious online tools you mention in the video, what a relief!
I love the images produced by astrophotographers. Myself am only a visual observer and am okay with what i can only see with my naked eyes thru the telescope.
I admire visualists that can actually see all those details… I know some do and that’s an incredible skill
Nice presentation, but there's a fundamental flaw in the argument made regarding the Bayer matrix. Mono uses filters which have bandpasses that either don't overlap at all, or overlap very little. The bayer uses a dye based filter, which has a large overlap in bandpasses. Blue pixels are gathering green light, green is gathering blue and red, and red pixels gather green. In fact, blue gathers red, and red gathers blue (at admittedly lower levels). This adds up to signal (similar to human eye function of cones), so the argument that basically says that the other pixels are not being used is just false. SPCC adjusts for OSC color "confusion" similarly to Mono lack of Cyan/yellow-orange (due to too small of bandpass overlap). Regarding the debate about efficiency of mono vs OSC, this has been rigorously evaluated (see John Upton calculator on CN), and while LRGB is more efficient that OSC, it can be true that OSC is more efficient than mono RGB. It's use case specific. The reason why is due to the overlapping bandpasses of OSC vs the narrow bandpasses of typical mono filters (some with a LP gap between red and green). Finally any dislike of interpolation can be completely avoided by drizzle. So, while I find some of the information provided pretty dated/stale, I agree that OSC and Mono are getting closer and closer in performance capabilities. With SPCC, proper sampling, adequate SNR, and drizzle, any differences more than likely come down to personal skill in post-processing for most cases where very narrow wavelength isolation isn't required.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I agree that on OSC sensors there’s often an overlap between the different colors, however I do not think this is as good a thing as you suggest it is. It can be somewhat beneficial if you were to use a single band narrowband filter as you would get a small amount of additional data in the other channels. In real life, people will usually use either no filter or a dual band filter on OSC cameras where getting your Sii or Ha in your blue and green channels and Oiii in your red, you’re decreasing contrast in your data as you cannot selectively add them together. So yes you get some extra data but it actually makes your data quality worse, it’s not really an argument in favor of the OSC. You can create a luminance-like layer adding together all the channels though this is less efficient than an actual luminance layer, and color contrast is decreased in any case. If you think the band pass of a color in the other 2 channels is significant enough for you to get more data, then the contrast loss is also significant. Otherwise, this effect can be ignored and the original point of the video stands. Regarding avoiding interpolation via drizzling I agree it can be overcome, however you need a substantial number of frames (as always with drizzling). It is good practice though and I almost always do it with my color sensors.
Awesome 🤩
Thank you! Cheers!
Not just another pretty face, your very knowledgeable, impressive.
Thank you for saying that
I'm a fake, love the subject however don't really want to buy into it. Its really great to enjoy what others achieve and all the work that goes into it. Light pollution is a big problem and star parties are very interesting which as a inventor brings me to the idea of building a mobile observatory with living quarters. That and camping would be an adventure on its own but I'd leave the astrophotography up to others.
Well don’t be a stranger when you need a tester for your mobile obsy 😋
I am huge fan of one shot color cameras because the lousy conditions at my nothernly latitude. And for the final result there are no 'real' or 'fake' colors because none of my deep sky images looks like the blue green visual impression seen in my telescopes... 😊 There are no colors in nature, color is about visual perception created by our brains.
imagine if we could see halpha! the night sky would be that much more colorful!
Hmm. I used to work with NASA colleagues on space projects. What should I think about this title?
if you watch like the first 60 seconds you'll see the reason for the title! :)
@the_space_koala OK, I get the point. Our international NASA group took the first infra-red pictures of our universe from the IRAS satellite, a cooled monochrome unit that allowed full colorisation of the final images. The colours are mathematically genuine - hence my concern at seeing the title. Thanks for the reply 🙂
Super informative, cool video! Thanks! :)
Thanks for saying that, I’m glad!
I couldn't agree more: the creation of astrophotos and its colour is a combination of science, art and individual preferences. For the latter two, every combination of colours is allowed. However, if true colour representation is desired, scientific rigorosity is required. If narrowband line emitters, such H alpha, emitting at 656,28nm with a bandwidth much smaller than 0.1nm, are shall be represented in the RGB space in its true colour, then it must be placed exactly at R=255, G=000 and B=082.
I couldn’t agree more! I rarely do true color narrowband but I always add that tiny bit of blue that makes all the difference!
Excellent presentation and explanation. I am on the verge on "going mono" 🤪Subscribed.
Join the dark side! We’ve got filters! Thank you 😊
tysm, well explained and researched. Your channel subscriber count is going to blow up soon!
wow thank you so much! I hope you are right haha
According to Trevor Jones, he only gets an improvement of ~14% going with Mono over One Shot Color, but its worth it to him. Remember folks, the deeper you get into anything, the more you see the subtle differences that the pro's are trying to improve upon, sometimes obsessing over. So if your just getting into AP, or its little brother Electronically Assisted Astronomy (EAA), Tiny Steps and Patience are your friend. You'll get there. Thanks! -mike