Make your own 3-colour images
With the Liverpool Telescope you can create your own breathtaking colourful images similar to what you might see on TV or in magazines. The colour images you see taken of distant objects in the night sky are in fact a combination of 3 images, each taken through a different filter. We combine red, green and blue observations to produce one colour image. Find out more about image processing.
Below you will find examples of some of the most beautiful objects in the Universe. You can download the data and create your own 3-colour image using LTImage. For each object, you will need to download the 3 files, one for each filter - Red, Green and Blue. If you haven't used LTImage before, you can follow the Whirlpool Galaxy example which has full instructions on how to download and use. You can use this method for any of the object's below.
| Object | Also known as | Description | Data Files |
M51 |
Whirlpool Galaxy | A spiral galaxy interacting with an active galactic nucleus. | |
M27 |
Dumbbell Nebula | Planetary nebula (the first to be discovered). | |
M1  |
Crab Nebula | Supernova Remnant. | |
M104 |
Sombrero Galaxy | Lenticular galaxy (somewhere between an elliptical and a spiral). | |
 |
Stephan's Quintet | Visual grouping of five galaxies. | |
ARP 273 |
Pair of interacting galaxies. | ||
M17 |
Omega / Swan / Horseshoe Nebula | One of the brightest and most massive star-forming regions in our galaxy, the Milky Way. | |
NGC 7635 |
Bubble Nebula | Balloon-like sphere of gas |
To make it easier for you, you can download all the object files together in one go. You will need to unzip the directory once it has downloaded to access the individual files.
