The bar spiral galaxy NGC 1385 appears in two very different Hubble images due to the use of different specialized filters. This luminous tangle of stars and dust is the spiral spiral galaxy NGC 1385, which is about 30 million light-years away from Earth. The same galaxy is the subject of another Hubble Image of the Week (see image below), but the two images are noticeably different.
This newer image has more pink and russet tones, whereas the previous image was dominated by cooler blues. This difference in color is not only a creative choice, but also a technical one, to show the difference in the number and type of filters used to collect the data, which were used to produce the two images.
Learn about telescope imaging technology
It's understandable that there's some confusion when images of the same galaxy taken twice by the same telescope show such big differences in the two different images.
The reason is that, like all powerful telescopes used by professional astronomers for scientific research, Hubble is equipped with an array of filters. These highly specialized components bear little resemblance to the filters used on social media: These software-driven filters are added after the image is taken, resulting in a loss of image information as certain colors are exaggerated or reduced for aesthetic effect.
In contrast, a telescope filter is a piece of physical hardware that allows only specific wavelengths of light to enter the telescope when collecting data. This does result in a loss of light, but means astronomers can detect extremely specific parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. This is useful in many ways; for example, physical processes within certain elements cause them to emit light at very specific wavelengths, and the filter can be optimized for those wavelengths.
Look at this week's image and the previous image of NGC1385. What's the difference? Can you see the extra detail (due to the extra filters used) in this week's image?