What are the biggest challenges in representing data from the Spitzer telescope?
Robert Hurt: Unlike Hubble, which operates in the visible part of the spectrum, Spitzer sees infrared light far beyond human vision. Naturally we must display this data as visible light just to see it ourselves, so there is always some level of visual reinterpretation. We may in some cases have more than three infrared images we want to present in a single composite, while in others there may be only one. Thus we must find different ways to best utilize the three colors our eyes can see (red, green, and blue) to portray the infrared view. Dynamic range is also a concern in many images. Telescope detectors can record a far wider range of brightness than a digital camera or even film. When photographing a sunlit landscape through a window in a dark room you have to choose between exposing for either the shadows or the highlights. To see the full range of brightness, a telescope’s data can be “compressed” using various mathematical functions. These Spitzer images show a range of brightnes
