Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2018

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2018 STRANGE IMAGES Almost true nebular fakes 1 7 6 ➤ ➤ 4 ➤ 5 ➤ 3 ➤ We conclude this brief digression on fake images with the deep sky, and in particular with a series of re- markable artworks realized by Jakob Schiller. They are excel- lent examples of how real images can be al- tered to create appar- ently natural subjects — as strange as they may seem — but that they are instead pure inventions of the author's imagina- tion: 1 a seal; 2 a but- terfly; 3 an anthropomor- phic being; 4 a phoenix; 5 and 6 spectral faces; 7 an unusual fish. At this point, it is clear that with regard to astro- nomical images it is not at all easy to distinguish the true from the false. On the web, there are thousands of examples of this type, many of which are shame- less artefacts. But there are also many that effectively simulate reality. To be able to distinguish between a non-ma- nipulated real photography (beyond reasonable processing), a reconstruc- tion of a likely scenario (used to docu- ment) and a deliberately falsified im- age requires some attention. 2 ➤ !