Gnuastro: visualizing the full dynamic range in color images
Raúl Infante-Sainz Mohammad Akhlaghi
Color plays a crucial role in the visualization, interpretation, and analysis
of multi-wavelength astronomical images. However, generating color images that
accurately represent the full dynamic range of astronomical sources is
challenging. In response, Gnuastro v0.22 introduces the program
'astscript-color-faint-gray', which is extensively documented in the Gnuastro
manual. It employs a non-linear transformation to assign an 8-bit RGB
(Red-Green-Blue) value to brighter pixels, while the fainter ones are shown in
an inverse grayscale. This approach enables the simultaneous visualization of
low surface brightness features within the same image. This research note is
reproducible with Maneage, on the Git commit 48f5408.