The good news continues!  Noel & I have just had the Belt region of Orion image published on the hugely popular International Year of Astronomy web site.  Thank you Steve for publishing the Winter deep-sky image over the Christmas break

Greatly missed,  Sir Arthur C Clarke who wrote one of the Forewords for Star Vistas, would have been 91 today.  We shall continue loooking for you “out there”.

Our Dark Skies (ODS) is the astronomy forum where I first met up with Noel Carboni.  You can order Star Vistas throught the ODS site here.

Local independent TV broadcaster Meridian TV was at the New Forest Observatory last night [2nd December] filming a piece on the forthcoming large-format coffee-table book Star Vistas!!  The short interview should be broadcast on Meridian News either tonight [3rd December] or tomorrow night [4th December].  Keep an eye out for a sneak preview of the cover and for some recent images

This programme actually aired on the evening of the 10th December – Meridian evening news.

I have just been informed that Barnes & Noble and associated stores also have Star Vistas available for pre-order!

All the recent publicity in the popular Press has sent a torrent of comments in my direction.  Quite a few members of Joe Public made dismissive comments about the images saying they were simply “Photoshopped”.  I guess I should not expect the general public to understand the process that goes into creating these images, so I think it is timely to say a few words on the subject here.

By “Photoshopped” these members of the public mean that the images were somehow created, painted almost with unreal heightened colours perhaps.  Nothing could be further from the truth!  Everything you see in the deep-sky images was present in the raw data (straight from the camera) – absolutely NOTHING has been added.  Photoshop is simply a tool – albeit an extremely powerful image processing tool.  The functions that are mostly employed are nonlinear stretches to pull out the faint data – whilst at the same time keeping the stars under control (it’s very easy to get the stars bloating if you’re not careful).  So all that Photoshop is doing is enhancing the image by bringing out faint objects already present in the data.  In fact it is a huge part of the processor’s time and effort to make sure that what is seen in the final image is “real” and not some artifact produced by careless or improper processing.  That’s why – if you compare the Star Vistas images with those from professional observatories (or other dedicated amateurs) you will find the images all very similar.

With regards to the colour you see in these images – to keep it short – the colours are “real”.  Real in the sense that the red in the emission nebulae really is that colour red, and any coloured stars are really that colour.  Once again, a great deal of time and effort is put in by the image processor (Noel in the case of all Star Vistas images) to make sure the colours are “real” and consistent.  The fact that you don’t actually “see” those colours when looking at these objects through small telescopes is due to the physiology of the eye.  Basically the eye is not good at discerning colour when the light intensities are low – that’s why things look like various levels of grey when you go out at night.  We know what the colours really are because spectroscopy tells us at what wavelengths hydrogen (for example) emits – and it tells us to a very high degree of accuracy.

So in summary – in all these deep-sky images – Photoshop is simply a tool to enhance the data which already exists – NOTHING is added.  Secondly, the colours you see in all these images are real.  If the physiology of the eye was different so that you could discern colour with low light intensities – these are the colours you would actually see.

A quick edit!  Noel correctly pointed out that sometimes something is added   Star spikes are occasionally added (even though they occur naturally in the Hyperstar III images) for increased effect.

The latest image hot off the Parker/Carboni press.  This is the nebulosity IC59 and IC63 surrounding the naked-eye star Gamma Cassiopeiae in the constellation Cassiopeia.  This is a total exposure time of 4.3 hours using RGB one-shot colour data and the Hyperstar III lens assembly.

One of the national newspapers mistakenly wrote “Space Vistas” for the Parker/Carboni deep-space coffee-table book – instead of “Star Vistas”.

I have created this entry so that anybody searching for “Space Vistas” should still be able to stumble across this site for STAR VISTAS

The U.K. Amazon and the U.S.A. Amazon now have Star Vistas ready for pre-order with a price guarantee.  As there is likely to be a rush on this publication it might be a good idea to pre-order your copy now to avoid disappointment.

U.S.A customers please check here:  U.S.A. Star Vistas

U.K. customers please check here:  U.K. Star Vistas

For me this is (currently) the most iconic image in the Parker/Carboni portfolio.  It is difficult to believe, but this image shows the region of the 3 bright stars that make up Orion’s Belt in the constellation Orion.  You can see Orion right now, just look towards the South around 11:00 p.m. and the unmistakeable outline of Orion will pass from East to West during the course of the evening.

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