NGC 7331 with the 3.5m Zeiss Telescope of Calar Alto Observatory and the LAICA camera, by Vicent Peris (PTeam/OAUV). Entirely processed with PixInsight version 1.2.
This image of NGC 7331 and its surrounding galaxies is my first astrophotographic work with Calar Alto Observatory (CAHA). First I must thank Joao Alves, the Director of the Observatory, because the data for this work have been acquired during his discretionary observational time. Also thanks to Gilles Bergond, the service astronomer who acquired the data, and to David Galadí-Enríquez, who wrote the image release published at Calar Alto’s website. Finally, thanks to Vicent J. Martínez, ex-Director of the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Valencia (OAUV), the institution where I work as a professional astrophotographer.
For me, this image is just a starting point. The work of scientific photographers is important for the public outreach of astronomical research. The CAHA and the OAUV have given a first step; I hope this cooperation will continue from now on as a contribution to the excellent science communication activities performed by both institutions.
To know more about the objects present in this image, you can read the official image release published at Calar Alto Observatory’s website.
This image integrates a total of 139 minutes of exposure time. It is composed of 1-minute and 10-minute exposures that I have combined to create a linear, high dynamic range image. I have written a processing example, available on PixInsight’s website, which describes the whole processing of this image.
Oriol Lehmkuhl on 20 Oct 2008 at 4:16 pm #
Hi Vicent congratulations for this splendid image
And thanks for this impressive explanation about your work flow 
You have the ability to make difficult things easy!
Regards.
Carlos Sonnenstein on 20 Oct 2008 at 7:54 pm #
Hi Vicent, I like it very much. Thanks for the release.
Juan Conejero on 21 Oct 2008 at 8:18 am #
This is one of those images that make us love astronomy and image processing. Absolutely wonderful.
Antonio Sanchez on 21 Oct 2008 at 8:42 am #
I found at least *unusual* that DDT in Calar Alto was emplyoed just to take a picture, and I wonder why. I think beauiful pictures can be useful means to communicate scientific results to people, but when they come alone, whithout being a corollary of a research, they lose lots of their meaning.
Vicent Peris on 21 Oct 2008 at 12:00 pm #
Hi all, thanks for your nice comments.
Hi Antonio,
I think this is really the key point of this photo. The matter this photo suggest is why the figure of the scientific photographer doesn’t exists anyway. Today, any researcher can use this research photos to communicate with the public. This is, in my opinion, not correct.
One image must be shown in different ways depending on the context. If you’re writing a paper about NGC 7331, you can include a photo of the galaxy like this:
http://www.astrofoto.es/astrofoto/CAHA/NGC7331/pub/PIBlog/NGC7331_linearstretch.jpg
This has a photometric meaning: double light, double gray intensity. BUT this photo doesn’t has ANY meaning to the eyes when you communicate your research to the public: your spectators are not going to do photometry with their eyes! You must know (and investigate) how to manage the learning of the spectators through their eyes. So the above image will fail, in most cases, communicating any research result to the public.
Here is another example, from Subaru telescope:
http://subarutelescope.org/Pressrelease/2001/09/index.html
Download the high resolution image. You will see what says Subaru’s staff: “We see the stars of the Andromeda Galaxy as a great many small white dots.” What??? Stars in M31 are all white??? No, you cannot say to the public this statement, as it’s completely false. The spectator, after viewing the image, thinks that the Andromeda galaxy is composed of white stars!
Sometimes, 3.5^2 > 8^2
So, make your research… but I will communicate your images to the public, as I’m the photographer. Imagine Malher writing a Paper, or Einstein writing a simphony…
The need of a scientific photographer to communicate scientific images to the public points directly to your question: Why to take a picture with a professional telescope?
As I’ve said, I think the OAUV and the CAHA have done an important step in science communication for the future: invert a small fraction of time to take pictures for science and nature communication, and let the work to a photographer, who understands what’s the image. Obviously, my processed image will capture the atention of way more people that the linearly stretched one. And obviously, you cannot publish a linearly stretched image in the sites on wich this image is published now.
So only one reason is enough to justify these 139 minutes: create culture.
One last note. This image, as you say, is the corollary of many years of research. Read the article I’ve written, it’s a super-brief summary of part of my research. Aside from this image processing research, I have made also an aesthetic research on scientific imaging and data interpretation. In fact, I have an artistic formation, although I have been in contact with Astronomy from 21 years ago. I will write during this year all my research results… stay tunned, please.
Regards,
Vicent.
David Galadí-Enríquez on 21 Oct 2008 at 2:43 pm #
Hi!
Some comments on the opininon by Antonio Sánchez. He said:
“I found at least *unusual* that DDT in Calar Alto was emplyoed just to take a picture, and I wonder why. I think beau[t]iful pictures can be useful means to communicate scientific results to people, but when they come alone, whithout being a corollary of a research, they lose lots of their meaning.”
It is very usual to use Director’s Discretionary Time (DDT) just to take one or several pictures. Approximately half the DDT is used just to take pictures, and half the DDT is used just to take spectra, more or less. Later, these pictures or spectra can be used just to produce science, just to make public outreach, or just for both things.
You wonder “why”. Well, the reasons to devote some amount of DDT to X or to Y are stated in the application, and the Director, in a discretionary way, decides if the reasons argued in the application deserve receiving some observing time or not. So, the answer to your question, “why Calar Alto DDT was used just to take this picture?” is this: “as in all the other cases in which DDT was used just to take pictures or just to take spectra, the reason to approve the proposal was just that the Director, according to his own discretionary criterium, considered that the application just deserved it”.
This should just satisfy your curiosity.
In my opinion, nude scientific results alone can be useful to communicate the emotion of the scientific endeavour to the public, but without beautiful pictures they lose lots of their meaning.
This picture sheds a lot of light on image processing, scientific art, physics of the interestellar medium, the physics of disc galaxies and of the interaction among galaxies, stellar formation, cosmology and many other subjects. This image is an astronomical resource extremely useful to perform an efficient work on public outreach and pupularization of lots of results of modern astronomy. A lot of knowledge, computer work, artistic sensitivity, scientific know-how and planification was devoted to it, and I consder extremely unfair referring to all this activity, and to all the potential and quality of the result, as “just to take a picture”. Think about it.
Producing appealing material for efficient public outreach is a must for any modern research institution. And certainly Calar Alto will go on with this line of work in the near future, in spite of the old fashioned opinions that consider that devoting some observing time to this task is a waste of resources.