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Contents:

1. Digital Magic
2. Painting By Numbers
3. A Revealing Image
4. As Easy as Calling Up a Log
5. A Lunar Odyssey
6. Fun with Fuzzy Filters
7. Building Color
8. A Digital Toolbox

Building Color

It is late now and the storm has subsided. Light snow still falls and you and your hosts are tired. Yet one other imaging feat beckons: a color picture. Your friends had taken pictures of NGC 7479 through blue and green filters, and the picture that you guided was shot through a red filter. You have everything you need to make a color picture.

A bit foolishly you brag, "Watch this. It'll be easy." You bring all three images onto the screen. The green and blue images are nearly identical, but the red image, your image, is rotated compared to the other two. Bravely, you select a menu item you saw earlier that sounded like it was for merging images.

The menu looks obvious. For each color there's a size, a rotation, and two positions. You gamble and type 45 into the Rotation box then click OK. A badly messed-up color picture appears on the screen.

"Good guess," she says. "You're close with the angle. But it looks like the red image is still too far right and a touch low." It takes a little more nudging and rotating but three tries later you have it. The three images snap together.

"But there isn't much color," you say, looking glumly at the pale image you have worked so hard for. "It's all pastels."

"That's true," she agrees. "The universe doesn't make colorful galaxies." Sensing your frustration, she says, "OK, go ahead. You can increase the color saturation if you want. Just keep it tasteful."