A colour scheme for the display of astronomical intensity images

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new colour scheme for displaying astronomical intensity images that ensures perceived brightness increases monotonically, improving visual interpretation and compatibility with black and white printing.

Contribution

A novel colour scheme designed for astronomical images that maintains monotonic brightness perception and is integrated into major analysis software.

Findings

Scheme is perceptually monotonic in brightness.

Compatible with black and white printing.

Implemented in CASA and AIPS software.

Abstract

I describe a colour scheme that is appropriate for the screen display of intensity images. This -- unlike many currently available schemes -- is designed to be monotonically increasing in terms of its perceived brightness. Also, when printed on a black and white postscript printer, the scheme results in a greyscale with monotonically increasing brightness. This scheme has recently been incorporated into the radio astronomical analysis packages CASA and AIPS.