Edge-on Spiral Galaxy ESO 243-49 (NASA)

[Ironbird]

I downloaded the Large (952.0 kB) image as distributed by our friends at
NASA http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/exotic/pr2012011b/
read about the galaxy here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HLX-1
It's a strong candidate for an intermediate mass black hole @ 10^2 - 10^5 M☉


I applied my magical enhancement protocol (mep) and here's what percolated to the surface. Remember; no colorization, no solarization and no edge detection. A bit of sharpening (as a final touch) but no edge detect and
no saturation adjustment (up or down) - all "au naturale" - as generated by
my mep.

Not sure what to make of it .. if anything! As always; I encourage your comments. Keep em coming!

[Ironbird]

if one looks carefully; the central regions appear bridged by maroon-coloured "tabs" .. and .. there appears a contained, central "assorted jellybeans" multi-coloured region. No shortage of colour - safe to suggest.

[multiweb]

What's MEP?

[Ironbird]

it's a protocol I developed (discovered) originally for forensic crime-busting
purposes. Specifically in relation to over-exposed video footage of bad guys.
It seems to open up previously unseen vistas in all manner of photographs
and as such it's a keeper and I'm keepin it! : )

Your going to have to come up with more than just a one-liner if you want to pry this one from my greedy little hands. I encourage detailed comments and
lots of discussion. It's traditionally what Progress is predicated on. MEP is no exception. Keep em comin! :hi:

[strongmanmike]

Ooooo-k spill the beans... this all looks a little loopy, ...candid camera perhaps :face: :question:
:lol:

[Slawomir]

Interesting processing artefacts! :lol:

[Atmos]

I am curious as to what this is supposed to achieve. The problem with running anything on a 1mb jpeg? is the HUGE amount of artefacts that are generated. There is a couple of squiggly yellow lines on either side of the galactic core but I am struggling to see what they could potentially be. Perhaps you could enlighten me :-)

[multiweb]

Is this all done in photoshop or another software?

[Eden]

Definitely has that Andy Warhol feeling about it! :painting:

[astroron]

I really don't see the point of the exersize.:question:
Does nothing for me at all.
Wont bother looking at any more examples.
Cheers:thumbsup:

[Eden]

Any progress on that peltier-less cooling protocol, Ironbird? :question:

[Andy01]

Imo the intent of this forum is to share knowledge and help one another. To be seen to be grandstanding, allegedly withholding knowledge or techniques, with images available in the public domain, ie: not captured by oneself seems contrary to this imo. But maybe it's just me...

[Kunama]

Is it just me or has that black hole swallowed a dolphin? See last pic.....

[Atmos]

Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy ;)
Dolphins at the end of the Universe

[Ironbird]

OK so to address imaging artifacts I decided to apply some MEP to the tiff
image of same galaxy -- again; as kindly provided by NASA. Safe to suggest it differs significantly from the jpeg offering. Not sure why.

Here it is uploaded as a jpeg although downloaded and enhanced in it's native tiff file format. We'll call them Tiffpegs : )

n.b. my peltier-less cooling strategy is "on ice" for the time-being .. hope to rekindle matters in this direction sooner than later. Nice of you to inquire.

"I really don't see the point of the exercise.
Does nothing for me at all.
Wont bother looking at any more examples." << Thou doth protesteth too much for doth reasons unbeknownsteth :shrug: :hi:

[Ironbird]

As for not sharing in my secret protocol which took me way longer to
develop than it should have (hint) ... I would like to think (that) any digital imaging specialist (worth their grain of silver chloride) would be/should be able to generate the same ... without too much further ado. There is absolutely zero-hoaxing going on here .. no externally introduced information .. it's all from the NASA original with no skull-duggery included. If you would really like to know more about MEP .. I would suggest private messaging me .. I've never had one! :sadeyes: It's overdue! :P :hi:

[Ironbird]

wonder what happened to the dolphin? <>< <><

[graham.hobart]

with no reference to scale or procedures it's hard not to assume these are just artifacts introduced. That's what they look like to me and I remember doing a Dr Who on earlier pictures with similar results.
I am not learning anything from this line of work.
Sorry, but I visit this site to learn from people who explain techniques and skills for free and in good will.
This just looks like Gustav Klimt type nonsense to me
Graham.

[Ironbird]

if there is no compression then there are no imaging artifacts - am I right?

My protocol is predicated on median filters and linear adjustments re: hue and sharpening. Nothing too fancy. I'm not willing to provide my exact protocol..lets see what you can do first. It's kinda like "I'll tell you which bank I frequent but don't expect me to hand over my pin code!"


In the most recent series of images: I'm zooming in on some anomalous black dits on the centralized half-torus reddish orange bulge. X-marks the spot. Sorry if it's confusing .. magnification gets pretty extreme .. but it's always centered on the left-hand side black dit on the central reddish orange bulge. < I do vary the hue mind you .. just follow the roughly triangular left hand side "dit" through "the paces".

As for there being no scale of reference .. that's a valid complaint.

I'm having no luck finding a value for the diameter the galaxy .. it's just quoted as "large". Let's assign a largish value of 100 000 ly. The central region is about 15% of the width of the galaxy. The black X-marks-the-spot region is roughly about 5% of the width of the central region. Consequently the entire region of the "quad pictures" extends perhaps 75ly horizontally side-to-side.

I'd like to jump on the "it's all just imaging artifacts" bandwagon but the closer I view this picture the more I get the impression that it's anything but imaging artifacts. Everything is behaving way too consistently .. and besides it's a tiff file and not a jpeg file.

[Eden]

Not necessarily. Excessive processing of any kind, regardless of what filters are used, will almost certainly introduce erroneous components which were not present in the original data.

I don't know what software you are using but you did mention sharpening. Take a look at (for example) the source code for the The Gimp, the popular open-source image processing/painting program. Specifically, look at the various sharpening filters and see what they actually do the pixel data on a per value basis.

It looks as though you've employed a bump-mapping filter on one of the images attached earlier. The pronounced "squareness" exhibited is a strong indication of extreme processing to the point where the original data is rendered almost meaningless.

[Atmos]

I ask again, what is this technique supposed to achieve? That is what I am curious about.

[Ironbird]

I'll tell you what software I'm using .. I'm using XNView. The most basic of basic image editors. First order of business in assessing enhancement potential is to look at how many colours are in the picture. If it's 256 or less it's a bit of a hard-go .. but not impossible.

Wonder why NASA offers up 256 colors or less in a lot of there mission images? Adding noise emphasizes anomalies through subtle colorization. < I amp on this otherwise 256 color (or less) images are completely constipated from an enhancement perspective. << NASA take note please .. no $10 Wallmart camera images please. Time to hit the camera upgrade button!

So moving right along .. if the #of colours is in the thousands .. you know you have a winner from an enhancement perspective ... convert to tru-color (in case it's not already).

Next we drub the image (soften it up with a few left hooks). Drubbing consists of the application of median filtering. Pretty standard stuff. Doesn't introduce much by way of image artifacting is my understanding especially as applied to high resolution images.

Drubbing smooths the functionality of the various image control sliders. Non-drubbed images elicit a stoccatic response from the sliders .. drubbing smooths things out .. equalizes it (normalizes it). It's a wonderful thing.

So MEP'ing is really a two part operation .. one is the drubbing slash pre-conditioning and the other is the actual image parameter manipulation re: hue and levels and sharpness etc.

The rub is in how to apply the filters. And that's about all I got to say : )'

[Ironbird]

Normal images are rude and crude i.e. don't respond well to standard enhancement. I've developed a means of softening up the image (numerically punch the stuffing out of it a bit) and making it much more amenable to traditional techniques. It's like night and day the way the sliders behave before and after the initial punch-out (drubbing).

So part of it is to achieve better response from my image parameter sliders.

The other thrust of this particular protocol is its application to glare-reduction. It works great at seeing through the glare of a billion suns in the galactic nucleus region - specifically.

And finally; it's to boldly go where no man has gone before!

Kirk out!

[Ironbird]

Thou art protestesting too much!

[Atmos]

From looking at it I cannot see any scientific application although from the way you are explaining it, that was not your intention. From a scientific perspective you really need to work from the original data files while they are still in their linear form. The editing of the images from their pure form will cause artefacts.

[multiweb]

I've used XNView for years. It's a good image viewer with very basic image editing capabilities . So not really an editor. Now you've confused me. I don't understand what you are talking about in the above or even showing in your pictures. It looks like posterized artwork not data enhancement. You might think you see things in your patterns but it is just artefacts generated by the processing. I don't see it as data enhancement but more like fabrication of colors, shapes and outlines. It's arty but that's about it.

[RickS]

Sounds like a Turbo Encabulator to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac7G7xOG2Ag

[Eden]

Nothing quite like a bit of Sinusoidal Depleneration to keep you on your toes. :rofl:

I prefer the Mike Kraft version:

Mike Kraft does the Retro Encabulator for Rockwell Automation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXJKdh1KZ0w)

[Ironbird]

it's all done in XNView which should speak to it's non-forgedness. No posterization nor edge-detection was employed. Somebody suggest bump-filters. I don't believe I've employed any. Just a reasonably-modest amount of
median filtration.

The rectilinearization is pronounced as it is extant and my filtering protocol emphasizes it.

Lets have a look at a test image .. a nice drop of water on a sprig. Good subject matter in that it contains lots of colours and guaranteed round contours along with the potential for rectilinear "contours". Again; X marks the general area-of-inspection (in the 2nd image).

http://www.free-slideshow.com/rain_drops.shtml

I think it safe to suggest we're not seeing any great propensity toward rectilinearization of data i.e. "what you see is what you got" .. faithful rendering on all fronts except perhaps tone. The adjustment of which is of forensic utility as the eye is more contrast-sensitive to certain color combinations - than others.

Yepp.