Comments on: Aurora viewed from space.

By: John

John — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 03:14:22 +0000

I just recently posted about another cool image of the northern lights - - the link is here(the one titled auroraborealis):

http://tivac.com/images/backgrounds/

By: Sid Morrison

Sid Morrison — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 18:36:22 +0000

chet: That's my whole point. NASA heavily doctors the images they put out to the public to make them look extra pretty and appealing. They make some beautiful pieces of art, but the "science" disappears pretty fast when you start doing this. They've taken heat for this in the past, but pretty pictures excite more people about space = bigger budgets for them. They admit this image is a composite of at least 2 other images, one of which (a "Blue Marble - Next Generation picture") is itself heavily "enhanced" - read about that on their website. Like the resurrected Viking boat in another article, you have to wonder how much is real by the time they are finished. Straight talk from Sid.

By: chet

chet — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:08:02 +0000

They tell you exactly how they made this picture:
"The ring of light that the solar storm generated over Antarctica glows green in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, shown in this image. The IMAGE observations of the aurora are overlaid onto NASAâ€™s satellite-based Blue Marble image."

By: Tempscire

Tempscire — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 16:50:00 +0000

I've always wondered what an aurora would like from the other side of the atmosphere. Nifty.

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:58:13 +0000

It looks like something out of a Science fiction show.

By: Sid Morrison

Sid Morrison — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 12:41:39 +0000

That is pretty cool! I wonder how edited/enhanced it is, though. A lot of released NASA photos are *heavily* doctored, and have been for decades to make them more intriguing to non-scientists (who then tell their congressmen to keep the bucks flowing in NASA's direction).

I'm not saying that the moon shots were shot in the Nevada desert or anything, but NASA employs a number of talented artists who are good at adding color were the wavelengths of light are not visible, removing noise, upping saturation levels, sharpening blurriness and general photoshopping so that the public-released images wind up truly dazzling. The heavy editing always makes me wonder how much you can trust. As an engineer myself, I'd like to see a little less reliance on special effects artists and more on the RAW images.

Straight talk from Sid.

By: fluff

fluff — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:01:35 +0000

Impressive.