on 9 Sep 2003 13:05:48 -0700, Rusty B sez:
` PR With Universal Appeal
`
` The Hubble's amazing but drab images of the cosmos are being digitally
` enhanced as a splashy sales pitch for the space program.
`
` By Allison M. Heinrichs, Times Staff Writer
`
` Sep. 5, 2003
`
` BALTIMORE — The postcards from the farthest reaches of the universe
` stream back to planet Earth each week from the Hubble Space Telescope
` — rainbow-hued clouds of nebula gas, sparkling lilac dust on the arms
` of pastel galaxies, blazing red stellar outbursts.
`
` The Hubble images are the sharpest and most detailed of the cosmos
` ever seen; snapshots of cataclysmic events occurring billions of
` light-years away in a dance of color and light that seem almost too
` good to be true.
`
` They are.
`
` The planets, nebulae and galaxies really are out there but their
` breathtaking colors are, in most cases, exaggerated. They are the
` product of a team of NASA astronomers, computer artists and
` public-relations folk who touch up and color Hubble's photographs,
` massaging each one until it is, in the words of one scientist, "just
` right."
`
[...]
`
` Hubble's artists aren't the only group colorizing the universe.
` Ground-based observatories and other space telescopes, such as the
` Chandra X-ray Observatory, also enhance their images,

Ah, as opposed to leaving them natural colour... what colour
are natural x-rays, exactly?



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Pete Vincent
Disclaimer: all I know I learned from reading Usenet.