Request your own images of planets, stars or nebula from NASA’s MicroObservatory.  Learn how to process the images using the free MicroObservatory Image software to produce your own amazing Color images.  Explore light, color, filters, and telescopes in the process.  Construct a display to share your experience.

Our September workshops are full; as soon as we can schedule a computer lab for a January session we will post a link to registration for that event.

To do these, and more, join NIU STEM Outreach on Saturdays, September 12 & 19 to Capture the Colorful Cosmos for yourself.  Space is limited to 10 computers in NIU’s Digital Convergence Computer Lab in Founders’ Memorial Library, so reserve your space early.  Registration is only $15.00 for the two sessions per pair working on a single computer.  We would like to encourage families to register together.  At least one person per pair must be at least 16 years old, with the other at least 10 years old.  Registration is open to adults as well, either in pairs, or singly if you prefer to work individually.

The big image is the Orion star-forming nebula photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. The inset image is a natural-color image of the same object taken using the red, green, and blue filters on the MicroObservatory telescopes.

“I think it's neat how multiple black-and-white images can be combined and colorized to create one full color image!