#thegreatunknown

Attached is a photo of the "Iris Nebula" that I colorized and enhanced.

This was the first photo that I attempted to colorize and enhance after my "Crab Nebula" one. This attempt was much more successful than my "Crab Nebula" one, due to the fact that I had practiced colorizing and editing on the last photo. It also was brighter than the Crab Nebula to begin with, so I didn't need to focus on stretching up the "Levels" and "Curves" as heavily as I did in the Crab Nebula photo.

Located about 1,300 light-years away, the Iris Nebula (also referred to as "NGC 7023") is located in the 'Cepheus' Constellation, and belongs in the class of Nebula known as a "Reflection". Other well-known 'Reflection Nebulas" are named the "Blue Horsehead Nebula", and the "Running Man Nebula" which is located in the Orion Constellation. The Iris Nebula is also about six light years (35.28 trillion miles) long!

With the help of the BSU Observatory and Professor Kern, I was able to get a clear picture of the Iris Nebula. The original picture did not show much, all I could see was the faint center, which was visible (unlike the Crab Nebula). Once I increased the luminance level and changed the "Curves" and "Levels" tools around slightly, I was able to get a view of the stars and dust clouds surrounding the center of it, that photo is shown below this paragraph.

(This photo was after increasing the "Levels" and "Curves" on the photo, NOT the luminance layer)

You may look at the first photo and notice that the color of it is primarily purple- in fact- its ALL purple. The reason behind this is that prior to increasing the "red" layer's intensity, it was not clear enough for my liking, the dust clouds in the photo were being muted out by the "blue" layer. In order for the clouds to appear prominently, I had to add to the "red" layer's intensity, and it worked, the downside is that it made everything purple.

Below is an photo taken by Trevor Jones, which shows the Iris Nebula being shown as blue, unfortunately, my photo was only clear when I made it look purple.

What gives off it's iconic blue glow is the star that is located inside the Nebula, it is known as "SAO 19158". The reason that it is blue is because of the temperature of the star, which falls between 10-50,000 Kelvin. The star is about ten to fifteen times the mass of our sun, and illuminates the dust clouds surrounding it, which gives us the jaw-dropping beauty of the "Iris Nebula"

SOURCES:

"Stars | Causes of Color" (Webexhibits)

"Iris Nebula" (StarryWonders)

"The Iris Nebula" (AstroBackyard)

"iris Nebula" (Wikipedia)

Photo Credits:

BSU Observatory

Trevor Jones

Shown here is my final image of the "Crab Nebula". You may look at this and say- "Hey, that looks familiar!", and that's because it is the exact same as my "work in progress" photo.

Unfortunately, after multiple hours of changing the "Red, Green, and Blue" layers on the editing software "GIMP", I was unable to get the image any clearer than this image. In fact- this image was better stabilized all around. The "Luminance layer" (as you may remember), is what brightens up the image, and overall keeps the image more appealing to look at. It can also keep everything clear, and can make the main subject of the image stand out.

I attempted to lower the brightness, but unfortunately it resulted in the image below, I decided that the first image was a better overall result.

Although you can still see the nebula itself, you cannot see the surrounding dust clouds as much, which add to the nebula's size and impact on the screen. Without the Luminance Layer being set so high, it is nearly impossible to see the actual size of the Crab Nebula, it also removes the much of the detail of the stars in the background.

After attempting to use the "Curves" and "Levels" tool to attempt to save the image- I decided that changing it any further would end up making the image seem distorted. I was happy stopping where I was, since you could still see a lot of detail, and can still see the different colored stars in the background (which is a good sign, since not all stars are the same color, they vary in color and temperature.

One thing I do not like about my final image is how the image looks more "blue" then expected. Even after using the different tools and filters within GIMP, it did not help much, and any other colors would cause the detail to be lost in some places, specifically the stars (which i was the most concerned about).

A few weeks ago, I attended the "Stars" event, which showcases the talents and research of students in a wide variety of areas.

In my presentation, I spoke about my colorized photos of the Crab and Iris Nebula with my partner Andrew Berlo, who spoke about his photos separately, he took colorized photos of Saturn and the Flame Nebula, which he did a fantastic job on, which you can see labelled below.

(Flame Nebula, colorized and edited by Andrew Berlo)

(Saturn, colorized and edited by Andrew Berlo)

In our poster, we compared our final results of the Crab Nebula photos, and the following is what we said about our final results.

"For my image of the Crab Nebula, I edited to make the Crab Nebula appear greenish in color, while also having blue, green, and red appear throughout the surrounding stars. The Crab Nebula is located about 6,500 light years from Earth and is a supernova remnant located in the constellation Taurus." (Andrew Berlo)

"For my image of the 'Crab Nebula', I had made several attempts to get a clear shot of this image, but finally was able to get one once I applied several settings and tools. Including the 'Curves', 'Levels' and 'Hard Light' filter to the 'Luminance' layer, which allows everything in the image to be much clearer and brighter. ​

My result ended up showing the nebula as being more of a cloud, unlike Andrew's. Which shows more of the interior of the nebula. ​

This image was the result of 3 other attempts that resulted in an either an overexposed or pixelated mess." (Cameron Williams)

I also spoke in detail about my final product of the Iris Nebula, in the description, I went in-depth on the details of how I edited it, and how I got the final result. And here is what I said in the poster;

"In this image of the Iris Nebula, I used the editing software 'GIMP' to manipulate the three main layers of this image, those are the Blue, Green, and Red layers. ​

      Located 1,300 light years away, the Iris Nebula appears to be predominantly Blue. However, in my editing process, although  it did come out a bright blue color, it was not very clear. And the clearest I could get it was when I increases the red color's intensity, which made it appear to be a purple hue to it. ​

In fact, I had to make a second 'Luminance' layer and add a "Hard Light" filter for the Nebula to be picked up on the screen."

Overall, I enjoyed the event, I saw other people's presentations about the same thing (Astrophotography), but also other topics, such as "Adoption", "Housing Costs", etc.

SOURCES:

References​

“The Crab Nebula seen in New Light by NASA’s Webb”, NASA Observatory, 30 October 2023, The Crab Nebula Seen in New Light by NASA’s Webb – NASA​

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“Saturn”, NASA, February 2024, Saturn - NASA Science​

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“Flame Nebula”, Wikipedia, 20 March 2024, Flame Nebula -​

 Wikipedia  ​

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"NGC 7023", Astro Backyard, https://astrobackyard.com/iris-nebula/​

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During class we learned about the early days of Astrophotography. When we first started talking about it, I did not expect high-quality photos at all. I was expecting the same as the early days of the original camera (low-quality, and not much detail showing), but what we looked at are shockingly detailed! Even compared to today's standards. You can see in the attached photos that the stars and surface of the moon are incredibly detailed.

In the first image, it is an example of the wet collodion process. Which involves cutting a piece of metal or glass, and exposing it to a multitude of chemicals (including egg-whites), and finally, exposing it to your target (What you want to capture), for a few minutes, and finally letting it dry. This would leave you with something that looked like this. It is a photo-negative, but when inverted, it is a clear image of the stars.

In this second image, it is another example of the "wet collodion process", except this time- it is the moon. The photographer would have to keep the sheet of glass or metal aimed directly at the moon, even while it was moving in the sky.