Yes Filter - Blog Posts

Make sure you pick the best filter 📸

This photo of a barred spiral galaxy 48 million light-years from Earth, taken by @NASAHubble, is a cosmic wonder. In its original form, though, it wouldn't look nearly as dazzling—raw images from Hubble and other space telescopes come in shades of gray, only showing the amount of light captured across all wavelengths the telescope's camera can measure.

In order to turn those images into colorful sights like this one, we take photos with special filters that block out almost all wavelengths of light. One of the filters used on this image sees only light that would appear green to human eyes: light at wavelengths around 555 nanometers. The final multicolor image you see here uses data from seven different filters, collected with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Sand, K. Sheth