Scientific processing or artistic processing, which one is more important for astrophotography?

I think both are as important.

If everyone would just keep it 100% true to the data, then most images would look the same and amateur astrophotography (in my opinion) wouldnt be nearly as popular and would have a way smaller community. The more artistic approach and the creativity that comes with it, keeps astrophotography alive.

But for me there are definitely limits to the creative approach, but those limits are very subjective. Selective masking/stretching/etc. is fine for me, but inventing signal completely is not my cup of tea.

Michael Sleeman · Dec 19, 2025 at 07:55 AM

I think both are as important.

If everyone would just keep it 100% true to the data, then most images would look the same and amateur astrophotography (in my opinion) wouldnt be nearly as popular and would have a way smaller community. The more artistic approach and the creativity that comes with it, keeps astrophotography alive.

But for me there are definitely limits to the creative approach, but those limits are very subjective. Selective masking/stretching/etc. is fine for me, but inventing signal completely is not my cup of tea.

Hi Michael, thanks for your comments. I’m almost with you. Seen from my point that it will be meaningless for processing astro data if only focusing on scientific philosophy. The purpose of processing is to reveal the beauty of the cosmos, an overall beautiful image shouldn’t be a bad one even though it has some tiny scientific or artistic mistakes. I also insist that an impressive astro image may not required advanced processing techniques, especially for amateurs which may not understand how to use complicated techniques. However, I’ve seen many many beautiful images processed by amateurs, but was judged as plain and non-detailed works maybe because they overlooked using better techniques to process details. It’s unfortunate.

I don’t know if anyone can settle on the definition of “scientific” here. In my opinion, astrophotography pictures stopped being “scientific” the moment you stretched them. As to HDR, our eyes are capable of naturally perceiving HDR images. Just look at the moon with your eyes and then try to image it with your terrestrial phone without HDR post processing. Why is HDR deemed “not scientific” here?

I think the important discussion is “photography” portion in astrophotography. Photography implies you are taking an image of an object, not creating it. Enhancing colors, HDR, masks, etc is all utilizing the raw data to enhance what is already in the image to enhance our perception of an image. As long as you are not creating “fake structures” in your image, I think it can be classified as photography. Sometimes we deemed images “overly post processed” are the ones that tend to have excessive sharpness, saturation, denoising, because these processes if done excessively can lean on creating “fake” sharpness and colors that seem to exceed the limits of the data.

I think where things get really hairy is when you are using AI enhancement tools. The worst offenders maybe Topaz Denoise to enhance really faint narrowband data and structures that really has no real structure in the raw data beyond a smudge, but it is created to give a visual impact of a non existent object. That’s when in my opinion things cease to be photography and go into the realm of art generation.

BlurXterminator on the other hand seems to have now gathered acceptance in the astrophotography community as a valid tool for enhancing images derived from the data. Is the use of BlurXterminator “scientific”? I don’t think it is personally, but it certainly seems to enhance what I already see in my data the vast majority of the time, without creating new details. That’s why it is still considered photography. Of course there is valid debate to be had here.

I have a question in regard to this topic.

¿How much science can we make with LRGB Ha OIII SII?

🤔

Maybe there are more, but the two which come to my mind at the moment are

Photometry

Spectrography

and for that, coming back to the AI topic, not mentioned here, we do not need AI and also this type of images have nothing artistic in them.

I think an example of the crossover between science and photography is something I have done with a couple of recent images. I have recently imaged a couple of nebula that have both Ha and O3 but where one or the other was extremely dominant. If one were to be “color accurate” these would look essentially all red or all teal, depending on the dominant band.

But I wanted to show the structure and how that structure was different in each band and that meant differential stretching of the O3 vs the Ha. This is common in totally false color images but I still wanted people to see at least a reasonable approximation of actual color and still show the different structure. So I maintained the Red/Blue/Teal scheme but now the different structures can be seen.

So is it real? No. Is it more informative as far as the “real scientific appearance”. I think it is.

So no black and white answer (maybe a false color answer? 😊)and the result depends on the object and the goal and the integrity of the imager.

Ashraf AbuSara · Dec 19, 2025, 02:49 PM

In my opinion, astrophotography pictures stopped being “scientific” the moment you stretched them.

Ashraf has this exactly right. In order to be of value for any science related study, the data needs to be linear. Once you stretch it without preserving the operation, you are merely representing the data for visual “study” or for artistic purposes.

John

Very interesting topic, and I totally agree with what Spacetime Pictures said.

We could even push this line of reasoning further by asking: what does a “scientific” rendering actually mean? We are talking about visible images, already filtered through the prism of human vision and its biological limitations. So which part of the spectrum can we really call “scientific”? The same question applies to dynamic range: no display, not even the best OLED panels, can reproduce the full dynamic range perceptible by the human eye. Translating data into a form suitable for human vision is therefore already, in a way, somewhat “non-scientific.”

And we can go even further. Even if we could display the full dynamic range perceptible to the eye, what about the actual dynamic range of these objects in space? It is, of course, far beyond anything our eyes could ever perceive. Science, by its very nature, is already an interpretation, rooted first and foremost in perception. It is no coincidence that Art and Technique have so often been closely associated throughout history.

Which brings us to that latter word: technique. In the end, what we can reasonably expect from an astrophotograph—whether it is presented as more “scientific” or more “artistic,” since we can never objectively define where one begins and the other ends—is a representation that makes proper use of the medium itself: photography.

From that perspective, we might reasonably take issue with images that are clearly outside the color gamut, excessively saturated (or not enough), or poorly handled in terms of dynamic range—overprocessed, exaggerated, overly denoised, or not denoised enough, even if these aspects are somewhat subjective. Respecting the color space seems particularly important, because objectively it helps optimize the image without destroying data or degrading the viewing experience, regardless of the photographer’s artistic intent. The same applies to dynamic range. Even more so since we now have tools to measure when an image is out of gamut, when colors are oversaturated, and when dynamic range is being clipped. One may then reasonably wonder why some image creators sometimes ignore these parameters. And as someone already said, in the end HDR is actually closer to the way we naturally see things. It shouldn’t be considered “bad” processing—only sometimes poorly controlled.

All of this requires real expertise and a solid understanding of what a well-“mastered” image is. Ultimately, beyond the debate between art and science, one answer lies in technical skill—in what we might call craftsmanship. Craftsmanship is the subtle blend of both: mastery of a material or medium that enables genuine aesthetic and artistic realization. This applies to any craft—woodworking, for example—but countless other examples could be given.

To be clear, I’m not saying that technique alone matters; rather, strong mastery of one’s tools always allows the artisan to go further and be more precise in their intent to represent things as they wish. It’s a very long journey, and some days I remind myself that there’s still so much to explore and learn to improve my technique. For me, that’s really what fuels my passion for astrophotography.

A lot to chew on here. In responding, I feel like I need to put both hands on the wheel, keeping things evenly between the lines, as the possibility of a storm is high lol. So with that, I would say that you have to think about what drives behavior. On this site, I see artistic behavior rewarded and thus the authenticity road seems to be far off in the distance of the rear-view mirror. If you participate with this site, I would say that your behaviors are going to lean in the direction of the controlling mechanisms of this site. I would love for there to be two totally different categories of this site to participate in, one being artistic expression where anything goes, and the other where participants strive to meet an exceptional level of authenticity. That would really excite some like myself.

Anthony Grillo · Dec 20, 2025 at 03:02 AM

I honestly think we put way too much thought into this, like others have said before and one of my professors, the moment we stretch our data we stray from the scientific realm. As long as you're not “inventing” detail its normally fine. Most of us are doing this purely for the love of it anyways. Unless your collecting data for another agency, school, individual etc , it becomes more artistic.

We collected data for a group at penn state, they were very strict on what we could even do to the data and how we even collected it, they didn’t even want us to remove the satellite trails when we stacked it and sent it to them along with individual subs.

I’ve had points deducted when I was in school for “over processing” data on a project and it was just mono data with the STF applied and moderate denoising and sharpening lol

I usually give myself more liberty to be more artistic when just doing plain imaging but then again, I usually am never satisfied with the color in my work and tend to ruin it by going crazy lol

I mean, when you look at the Orion nebula visually it always appears green and purple to me, the ring nebula and other bright planetary also appear “neon like” green to me. Mu cephei (garnets star) appears as a deep almost blood red orange. So, I tend to try and at the very least match my color to what I would see if I was visually observing these objects

I just saw a group of people arguing about the blue color people use in the spiral arms of galaxies with one person saying blue was wrong but everything we know about Steller evolution and galaxies tells us that the outer arms of active galaxies are filled with hot, young blue stars and if you were to match that to the colors in stars you see visually through a telescope you would conclude that the sharp blue we use to represent those regions is scientifically correct.

Sorry I kind of dragged on but I needed to vent about this lol

It’s OK, Anthony. It’s a topic for free talking. Anybody can share points and experience.

Like a long-term dynamically changing process, the processing philosophy that I used to insist may be currently regarded as kind of ‘incorrect’ one. Techniques always advance, we couldn’t say either ‘scientific’ or ‘artistic’ is wrong or correct. It’s definitely a balance. I have also clarified above that any processing will change the original data, no matter in linear or non-linear status. There is only a concept of ‘relatively scientific’ or ‘relatively artistic’. It’s not a standard, it’s a choice, a direction, with subjective feelings. Maybe our works will be judged ‘not scientific enough’ or ‘not artistic enough’, but only you understand how hard you have worked on and how much passion and thinking you have injected to your images. You can appreciate your accomplishments. But from a perspective of judging, especially on open platforms. If you want to get honored, you have to satisfy judges’ feelings, then we need to consider ‘scientific’ or ‘artistic’ or even both of them because different judges have different opinions.

In addition, in terms of STF that you mentioned, I used to posted a short article to my local forum. It is a new discovery and attempt, which explains how to use STF to get the ‘same’ color of The Pillar of Creation as HST’s and has helped many imagers work on their Pillars and other high contrast images. However, there is still someone claiming that STF is quite easy, and they tend to use other techniques even though they have never got the same color and contrast of Pillars as HST’s. I don’t care others’ prejudice, I only want to make astrophotography progress as much as I can do, even though my power is weak (kind of talking big lol). But not only me, but also anybody who loves astrophotography in deep, they are the members in this process. So, what can I say, keep loving.

So many great posts here! And I voted both, because, as a math guy and one who taught it for 39 years, I love the numbers behind the process. And I've been interested in the science of astronomy for even longer. What's even more ironic as I wax philosophical here, is we tend to put so much stock in “linear image “ as being the only scientific way we can appreciate the data. But then I realized that nothing about the human senses is really linear. If we plotted our eyes photoreceptivity to wavelength we would get a gaussian lambda curve. If you look at the pupil of our eye as a circle the amount of light entering that pupil is proportional to the square of the radius. Light and sound intensity both vary as the inverse of the square of the distance from the source. The same with sound. And then I remember that the data we care so much about is purely digital. But we are using analog instruments to appreciate the aesthetic beauty of the digital data ! I remember that the big argument between audiophiles back in the '80s was whether or not music was really music if we listen to it in digital format. When sound is sampled hundreds of thousands of times per second, the best we are really hearing is nothing but a sampling that tricks our ears into thinking we're listening to music, so the argument went. True audiophiles wanted to listen to waveform cut into plastic grooves. The same argument went for film back when digital cameras became popular. So I guess what I'm saying is the science behind the science that we are so trying to protect really gives us what Marshall was alluding to above. There's this aesthetic beauty that drew us to astrophotography. It is a wonderful, creative art, carefully described by voltages and k values for poisson distributions, and hyperbolic graphs. I love it! Sorry for getting winded here, but never forget that we are the first generation of human beings who have been able to step in behind the veil to peer into this kind of beauty… ever in the history of man! In the whole timeline of mankind, all he had were his eyes, and maybe a peak of greenish gray dust somewhere, even when telescopes were first invented. What we are allowed to accomplish in this day and age is truly remarkable and a great blessing to behold and to wonder in the glory that the heavens truly declare of the One who created it all!

Blessings!

Tom

Hi Marshal,

Interesting. I voted None of the Above.

I’ve seen a lot of pictures in the last, oh, 14 years of my interest in Astrophotography and astronomy. (I go back to my childhood when my dad was pointing out what he knew of constellations) and things we could see as he tried to point them out. I use my lasers to snap my grandkids attention to an object. Which invariably leads to them wanting to “see” the laser, which I won’t allow.

When I was beginning to “get serious” about AP, I found M42 in my spotting scope. WOW! And eventually I tried taking a picture with my cell phone of that era. But The Great Orion Nebula set me on a path for Nebula astrophotography. Still pursue it today and still image many of the same things for the umpteenth times. And I still prefer to present my images in as close of as taken as possible. I do as little of post processing as I possibly can. I let my OSC camera do the speaking and adjust my exposure to attain the depth and colors I find. So maybe I’m on the scientific side of your poll. I’m definitely not on the artistic side.

To “colorize” a B&W image is seriously manipulating the data of the camera, in my opinion. And why I do not like the Hubble images which are so manipulated they even invented the Hubble Pallet for it. I challenge the authenticity of the result. I’ve seen images claimed to be from the Hubble Telescope in such an array as to appear to have been from a bag of Skittles candy. Likewise, I’ve viewed many privately processed images are not to my liking because I can find post-processing artifacts from manipulations. I used to do such fiddling’s in my early years and that’s how I came to not liking over manipulated astro images.

So “None of the Above”. I try to stay away from manipulated images and just enjoy what I can capture with my cameras. Mono or Color, because I enjoy both, capture the best as can be for the present skies I have. I chose Astrophotography because I hardly believe observation. I want an image of where I went and what I saw. And my eyes cannot build the image a camera sensor can. Speaking of sensors, I do wonder if sensor builders will ever make an astronomical sensor and stop giving us terrestrial sensors. Probably not, we are too niche a bunch.

Interesting survey.

I am not sure that it’s an important question. I do astroimaging 70% for the art, 20% for the discovery, and 10% to get out in the desert far away from the city. The art part is a lot of work. The discovery part comes after I do the post processing. I love to see the details of the target and all the things that pop up in the background. Getting out of town into the peaceful and scenic desert is just good for my head.

For a professional astronomer it’s 95% discovery perhaps, and maybe 5% art? How could you possibly say that one type of processing is more important and why would we care?