By using Photoshop on photos taken by NASA at the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, London-based illustrator Chris Keegan is able to create beautiful images of people and creatures out of deep space nebulae.

The process begins a lot like those summer days as a kid lying in the grass and picking shapes out of the clouds — just replace clouds with celestial imagery. Once Keegan has picked out a shape, he takes the image into Photoshop and strengthens that shape until it will be recognizable to everyone. Read more…

Parallax 3D images use two photos captured from slightly different vantage point to create the appearance of depth. In astrophotography, however, the distance between human cameras and distance objects are so great that real parallax generally cannot be achieved.

Finnish astrophotographer J-P Metsavainio has developed a brilliant experimental technique that overcomes this (kinda): he converts astrophotographs into 3D volumetric models, and then uses those models to create dazzling 3D animations of nebulae.
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At first glance, the images in Fabian Oefner‘s Nebulae might look like images of distant galaxies captured with a space telescope. They were actually shot in a studio using a number of fiber glass lamps. Oefner used exposures of different lengths to capture the ends of the lit fiber glass as points and streaks of light. He then combined multiple images into single photos to achieve the “star density” seen in the final images.
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Yesterday Canon announced a new DSLR geared specifically towards taking pictures of stars, the 60Da. For $400 more than the original retail price of the standard 60D, avid astrophotographers can purchase a camera that offers a “modified infrared filter and a low-noise sensor with heightened hydrogen-alpha sensitivity” for shooting “‘red hydrogen emission’ nebulae and other cosmic phenomena”. If you have no idea what that means, Canon has helpfully published a number of sample photographs captured with the camera. The side-by-side comparison above shows how the camera’s results differ from the standard 60D.
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