Chandra Data: Behind the Scenes of W49B
Submitted by chandra on Tue, 2013-02-19 17:38Joe DePasquale, Science Imager for NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, gives a pictorial tour behind the scenes on processing our latest Chandra press release image, supernova remnant W49B
I thought it might be useful to take a quick look at the various components that went into making the image for W49B. The release has sparked some attention and discussion on black holes, as well as how (and why) images such as these are colored. The processing of W49B included a combination of Chandra's CIAO software, PixInsight and Photoshop. The colors applied are representative, as we are translating something invisible to our eyes into something we can see. The image combines X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in blue and green, radio data from the NSF's Very Large Array in pink, and infrared data from Caltech's Palomar Observatory in yellow. Enjoy, and feel free to ask any questions.