TY - JOUR
T1 - Preparing Red-Green-Blue Images from CCD Data
AU - Lupton, Robert
AU - Blanton, Michael R.
AU - Fekete, George
AU - Hogg, David W.
AU - O'Mullane, Wil
AU - Szalay, Alex
AU - Wherry, Nicholas
PY - 2004/2
Y1 - 2004/2
N2 - We present a new, and we believe arguably correct, algorithm for producing red-green-blue (RGB) composites from three-band astronomical images. Our method ensures that an object with a specified astronomical color (e.g., g-r and r-i) has a unique color in the RGB image, as opposed to the burnt-out white stars to which we are accustomed. A natural consequence of this is that we can use the same colors to code color-magnitude diagrams, providing a natural "index" to our images. We also introduce the use of an arcsinh stretch that allows us to show faint objects while simultaneously preserving the structure of brighter objects in the field, such as the spiral arms of large galaxies. We believe that in addition to their aesthetic value, our images convey far more information than do the traditional ones, and we provide examples from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging, the Hubble Deep Field (HDF), and Chandra to support our claims.
AB - We present a new, and we believe arguably correct, algorithm for producing red-green-blue (RGB) composites from three-band astronomical images. Our method ensures that an object with a specified astronomical color (e.g., g-r and r-i) has a unique color in the RGB image, as opposed to the burnt-out white stars to which we are accustomed. A natural consequence of this is that we can use the same colors to code color-magnitude diagrams, providing a natural "index" to our images. We also introduce the use of an arcsinh stretch that allows us to show faint objects while simultaneously preserving the structure of brighter objects in the field, such as the spiral arms of large galaxies. We believe that in addition to their aesthetic value, our images convey far more information than do the traditional ones, and we provide examples from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging, the Hubble Deep Field (HDF), and Chandra to support our claims.
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U2 - 10.1086/382245
DO - 10.1086/382245
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:1642408233
SN - 0004-6280
VL - 116
SP - 133
EP - 137
JO - Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
JF - Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
IS - 816
ER -