Are the viral Skull and Bat Nebula images fake?

[DaveC426913]

I am disgusted with the way this thread went off the rails. If posters are going to misread me and put words in my mouth and then go deaf when I point it out, and then reitereate the same misattributions, and then have the nerve to presume I don't know what I'm talking about, then it really should be locked before they can make bigger fools of themselves.

 

[glappkaeft]

"stolen and badly processed" in my books counts as fake.

To me the images are stolen and badly processed.

The Skull Nebula is not fake. That image is. It's been heavily altered, by your own admission.

While I don't condone it the least I would not say heavily altered. They went for a blue/monochrome where the original was red/yellow. A valid choice if done better I would say.

After finally finding that image of the Bat Nebula with acquistion data, there's no longer any doubt it's real

It's misleading.

Yeah, and that you claimed it was obviously fake is not a good look on your debunking run. That science reporting can be corrupted is a problem with almost every mass media coverage I know anything about but is not an problem with the image.

No. I am just obliged to defend my initial assertion when dismissed it as fake. I was challenged, and am now putting my mnet where my mouth is.

Depending on how you define wrong you might just be wrong (or need to clarify your position). BTW I think your position is wrong and I think it is very shortsighted.

No. We're talking Photoshop here, not astrophotog techniques.

There are no astrophotos that have not been modified (Bayer conversion, gamma conversion, curves, etc.). Many of these techniques where done using the chemistry and exposure of film and the printing processes to prints and glass...

The only time I mentioned "official" was when I was asking for a picture from an official source. i.e. the organization that acquired the pic being the ones who published it, as opposed to some Google search that will turn up a million fakes.

And when I did you brushed them off by claiming google interference. That is always a good sign...

I did not mix these two things up.

I am comparing two images,- one I say is real astrophotog and one is heavily Photoshopped.

I have done astrophotography a lot, all astrophotos are heavily modified. What matters is if you did it naturally, with integrity, etc.

You are really reading in your own preconceptions into everything I say.

I can only base my conception on what you write and what I read. Without more context (which has helped a bit) I cannot do better. Sorry.

 

[russ_watters]

Ok, guys, I'm going to pause this for a while and let people cool down. I have no idea why it became so heated. Although, at this point it seems like there is some consensus/conclusion to the main points:

1. There is general agreement that the "Bat Nebula" photo is 100% real, by the standards of astrophotographers.
2. The "Skull Nebula" photo may or may not be "real". It's close to ones that are definitely real, but without knowing how the colors were produced it is impossible to know if it was created in an honest way. But I submit that because it's not easy to find the original source, that's potentially an indicator that it was stolen and dishonestly altered.

Anyway, I'll let you know how the Horsehead Nebula goes either way. It's off to a good start. Also, it may be worth rebooting this discussion to be about how astrophotographs are made, and how much processing really goes into them. It's a lot.

 

[Drakkith]

I don't think the very first image, the Rosette Nebula (aka Skull Nebula) is a fake and I don't think it's 'significantly altered' in the context of astrophotography. First and foremost, there is no 'standard' way to present an image in astrophotography. Colors, saturation, level of detail, sharpness, contrast, and virtually every other property of an image varies widely, even for images of the same object. Images are taken using many different types of telescopes and cameras, in different environments, with different filters, and processed with different software packages and techniques, all with varying degrees of user skill in every part of the process. Even color is subject to great change, as there are many different palettes used in narrowband imaging to assign color to different wavelength bands, most of which make no effort to match these bands to their actual colors.

I am looking for a definitive source, particularly for the Bat Nebula.

There isn't one. The best you can do is to look at many different images of the same target and decide if the image in question is sufficiently different to warrant suspicion. I would say no. Every image of the Rosette Nebula I've looked at (several dozen unique images in the last few minutes) all show the skull-like look of the nebula.

To me the images are stolen and badly processed.

I can't say anything about it being stolen, but the processing looks perfectly fine to me.

 

[Drakkith]

To tie this up a bit:

The best I can find is that the image of the skull is the Rosette Nebula and was taken by Curtis Morgan about 4 years ago and posted on Instagram here:

It doesn't appear to be a fake, as Mr. Morgan seems to be a very skilled astrophotographer with many high quality images on his instagram account, including several more images of the Rosette Nebula. In addition, every other image of the Rosette nebula I've looked at contains most of the same details as the image in question, with the differences only being what you would expect with images taken at differing focal lengths, seeing quality, equipment, and processing choices. I see no reason to believe that it is faked or that it is 'heavily altered' in some way that is out of proportion with how most astrophotography images are created.