#multispectral

A photo of a page from one of the Medinet Madi Coptic Manichaean Codices taken under ultraviolet light.

In Episode 20 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot talks with Paul Dilley about one of the Medinet Madi Coptic Manichaean Codices. These seven papyrus manuscripts dating to the 4th and 5th centuries were discovered in Egypt in 1929, and they tell the story of a religion that was intended to draw from Christianity, Buddhism, Gnosticism, and other religions to create something new, but it was later crushed by Christian Roman emperors who considered it heresy. Our conversation ranges from the conservation of papyrus and the details of the beliefs of Manichaeism, to papyrus conservation and multispectral imaging.

Listen here, or wherever you find your podcasts

Below the cut are more images and links relevant to the conversation. Please note that there is an animated gif that switches between light and dark at one second intervals. Please be careful if you are sensitive to flashing lights.

The painting of Lake Carnegie

This multi-spectral Landsat Image of Western Australia’s Lake Carnegie looks like it could have been ripped from the walls of an art museum.

Lake Carnegie is a closed, ephemeral lake. It only fills during particularly rainy years; during normal or dry years, the water evaporates, reducing it to a marsh or an almost dry saltpan.

This is not how Lake Carnegie appears to the eye - it has been processed from data collected by the Landsat 7 spacecraft. In a multi-spectral image, the actual wavelengths of light measured have been changed, so that different types of light are moved onto the visible spectrum making it possible for our eyes to see them. Different colors reflect the different types of light reaching the spacecraft; green is tuned to show vegetation, red is tuned to show drier land, and the blues show sediment motion and flow paths within the lake itself.

-JBB

The power of power-bands (PBs)!