David Malin is a British-Australian astronomer and photographer.

Malin trained as a chemist and originally worked in England as microscopist. In 1975 he moved to Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 to take up a job with the Anglo-Australian Observatory

Anglo-Australian Observatory

The Australian Astronomical Observatory , formerly the Anglo-Australian Observatory, is an optical/near-infrared astronomy observatory with its headquarters in suburban Sydney, Australia...

 (AAO).

Whilst working at the AAO, Malin developed several photographic

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

 processing techniques to maximise the ability to extract faint and low contrast detail from the non-linear response and high densities of photographic plate

Photographic plate

Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a means of photography. A light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was applied to a glass plate. This form of photographic material largely faded from the consumer market in the early years of the 20th century, as more convenient and less fragile...

s.

These techniques were initially devised to enhance the scientific return from photography, but Malin is now best known for the series of three-colour wide field images of deep space objects which have been widely published as posters and in books around the world. Most professional astronomical photographs are monochromatic

Monochrome

Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...

, if colour pictures are required, three images are needed. During his career at the AAO, Malin made about 150 three-colour images of deep sky objects mostly using the 4 m Anglo-Australian Telescope and plates from the 1.2m (47 in) UK Schmidt Telescope.

The true-colour images are assembled from three separate monochromatic photographs taken in red

Red

Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked eye...

, green

Green

Green is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570 nanometres. In the subtractive color system, it is not a primary color, but is created out of a mixture of yellow and blue, or yellow and cyan; it is considered...

 and blue

Blue

Blue is a colour, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 440–490 nm. It is considered one of the additive primary colours. On the HSV Colour Wheel, the complement of blue is yellow; that is, a colour corresponding to an equal...

 light. Each photographic plate is a special black and white emulsion

Emulsion

An emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that are normally immiscible . Emulsions are part of a more general class of two-phase systems of matter called colloids. Although the terms colloid and emulsion are sometimes used interchangeably, emulsion is used when both the dispersed and the...

 designed for low light conditions and is further enhanced for low light sensitivity by baking in a nitrogen

Nitrogen

Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...

 and hydrogen

Hydrogen

Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...

 atmosphere. The exposure times are relatively long, varying between 5–60 minutes for each colour depending on the luminosity

Luminosity

Luminosity is a measurement of brightness.-In photometry and color imaging:In photometry, luminosity is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to luminance, which is the density of luminous intensity in a given direction. The SI unit for luminance is candela per square metre.The luminosity function...

 of the object. The colour image is re-assembled in the darkroom

Darkroom

A darkroom is a room that can be made completely dark to allow the processing of light sensitive photographic materials, including photographic film and photographic paper. Darkrooms have been created and used since the inception of photography in the early 19th century...

, where further techniques such as unsharp masking

Unsharp masking

Unsharp masking is an image manipulation technique, often available in digital image processing software.The "unsharp" of the name derives from the fact that the technique uses a blurred, or "unsharp," positive to create a "mask" of the original image...

 to enhance fine detail might also be applied.

Since the early 1990s, silver-based astrophotography

Astrophotography

Astrophotography is a specialized type of photography that entails recording images of astronomical objects and large areas of the night sky. The first photographs of an astronomical object were taken in the 1840s, but it was not until the late 19th century that advances in technology allowed for...

 has been largely superseded by CCD

Charge-coupled device

A charge-coupled device is a device for the movement of electrical charge, usually from within the device to an area where the charge can be manipulated, for example conversion into a digital value. This is achieved by "shifting" the signals between stages within the device one at a time...

 imaging techniques. Although CCDs are much more sensitive than photographic plates, they are rarely able to cover the large field of view

Angle of view

In photography, angle of view describes the angular extent of a given scene that is imaged by a camera. It is used interchangeably with the more general term field of view....

 required to capture most nebula

Nebula

A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen gas, helium gas and other ionized gases...

e and nearer galaxies

Galaxy

A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...

. As such it is unlikely that David Malin's images will be surpassed in the near future.

In 2001 he retired from the AAO to concentrate on his own business David Malin Images which manages his image collection along with those of related photographers.

Malin was awarded the Jackson-Gwilt Medal

Jackson-Gwilt Medal

The Jackson-Gwilt Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society has been awarded regularly since 1897 for the invention, improvement, or development of astronomical instrumentation or techniques; for achievement in observational astronomy; or for achievement in research into the history of astronomy.The...

 of the Royal Astronomical Society

Royal Astronomical Society

The Royal Astronomical Society is a learned society that began as the Astronomical Society of London in 1820 to support astronomical research . It became the Royal Astronomical Society in 1831 on receiving its Royal Charter from William IV...

 in 1986. He received the Lennart Nilsson Award

Lennart Nilsson Award

The Lennart Nilsson Award recognizes outstanding contributions to scientific photography. It is administered by the Lennart Nilsson Foundation and awarded annually by Karolinska Institutet. The award sum is SEK 100,000...

 in 2000.

External links

• Astronomical Images at the Anglo-Australian Observatory
• David Malin Images
• "Photographer to the Stars", interview of Malin at Seed magazine, 28 July 2008
• David Malin biography and gallery at The World at Night