[George from New England]

I'm afraid to admit that these images from the Hubble telescope are not really what they show. All that they get back is computer data. NASA "artists" will assign colors to different data patterns and thus an image that looks cool. But these colors do not exist. There is much more artist imagination in these images than anything of substance.

[petuniasevan]

And why should this be news? All data from space-based craft ALWAYS is in the form of bits and bytes. That includes robotic landers like Viking and Mars Explorer, all the outward-bound craft like the Pioneers and Voyagers, and of course orbiting telescopes such as Beppo-SAX or Hubble.

The data is much more accurate, even with glitches, than anything a ground-based 'scope could image. As for image reality, don't forget that although image enhancement is used, often to seemingly artistic ends, the astronomers are looking for hard data. Thus they're really not glossing over "so-so" images, but bringing out details which otherwise might go unnoticed. Compare images of the Orion Nebula taken with ground-based 'scopes, to ones imaged with the Hubble Space Telescope. Nothing that's not there has been added; rather, now we have a sharper, more detailed image because the limit of resolution is much higher outside the blurry atmosphere.

Colors? Don't forget that imaging is done through different filters, then recombined to bring out those subtle details the astronomers want to observe and study. You won't see those colors when observing through your own 'scope because the visible image is too dim. Only a long exposure brings out the brilliant colors of a distant nebula.