The true-colour images are assembled from three separate monochromatic photographs taken through red, green and blue filters.

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

The colour image is re-assembled in the darkroom, where further techniques such as unsharp masking to enhance fine detail might also be applied.

In 1986 he discovered Malin 1, a giant spiral galaxy located 1.19 billion light-years (366 Mpc) away in the constellation Coma Berenices, near the North Galactic Pole.

Malin has published over 250 academic papers on the Astrophysics Data System (ADS)[5] and ten books.