Bob is right about the hyperspectral imaging. Let me start from astronomy to show how Clark could possibly use this.
Here\'s a link to a Hubble picture of galaxy NGC 6782. Not one of Hubble's best pictures, in my opinion.
Here are the original images that went into constructing the picture of NGC 6782. The galaxy was imaged in ultraviolet, blue, visual (yellow) and infrared light. As you can see from pictures, the galaxy looks particularly different in ultraviolet light, compared with how it looks when imaged in the other colors.
Here\'s a link showing what the galaxy looks like when you enhance one color over the other ones. In the first picture, the astronomers have exaggerated the strength of the ultraviolet channel, giving the inner ring of the galaxy a dazzlingly bright blue-violet color. In the second picture, they have enhanced the blue channel, bringing out the outer ring and faint outer arms.
Here is a link to a picture of famous constellation Orion. And
here is another picture of the same constellation. But the pictures look strikingly different, don't they? Where does all the red light come from in the second picture?
The answer is that that red light is so called hydrogen alpha light, which is released when a photon of ultraviolet light strikes an atom and forces the electron into a higher, more 'energetic' orbit around the proton. More precisely, the red light is released when the electron 'falls back' into the lower orbit again. The extra energy that the electron absorbed when it was struck by the ultraviolet photon is now released as a photon of red light, whose exact wavelength is always 656.3 nanometers. Most ordinary cameras are relatively insensitive to this wavelength, since it is 'far into the red part of the spectrum' not far from where visible red light turns into invisible infrared light. Our human eyes are really quite insensitive to this wavelength, which is why no human observer ever has seen red color in any nebulae in the sky - at best these nebulae look gray to us! But there are photographic filters which are highly sensitive to hydrogen alpha light. If you photograph Orion with a filter which senses this wavelength only, you can combine the image you get with pictures taken through other filters and create images like the second image of Orion, which is bathing in red light.
I think it is reasonable to postulate that Clark may have the ability to separate light with different wavelengths from each other. I remember a comic book, where Clark used his vision to see an infrared imprint of Lois on the roof of a car - in other words, Clark could see that this car had a Lois-shaped 'imprint' of enhanced temperature on its roof. Lois had left a 'heat print' of herself on the car. Maybe Clark could be able to do something similar here?
Of course, for that to work, the video itself would have to have been shot through at least two different filters and then combined into one video. Unfortunately, I find that unlikely!
Ann
