Just realized I was wrong about the Orion Nebula looking fake in photos

I always thought those bright pink and blue shots were just heavy editing until I saw it myself through a 10-inch Dobsonian telescope in my backyard last month, and the colors were actually there, just way more subtle than the camera picks up. Has anyone else had a moment where seeing something with your own eyes changed how you look at astro photos?

3 comments

3 Comments

sandra_bennett5928d ago

My experience was totally different with my own 10-inch Dob. The Orion Nebula had a clear green-gray tint to me, not the photos' pinks, but saying only planets have color is a stretch for me. @cole_baker has a point about our eyes in dim light, but I've definitely seen a rusty color on Mars and even a faint blue in the Trapezium stars. Maybe some of us just have more sensitive color vision, or it's about knowing what to look for. Seeing it firsthand made those bright photos make more sense, like they're just turning up the volume on a real signal.

milam4829d ago

That 10-inch Dobsonian must have been a game changer. What was the darkest sky you've ever viewed it from, and did that change how much color you could see with your eyes?

cole_baker29d ago

Actually, @milam48, our eyes are pretty bad at seeing color in dim light no matter how dark the sky is. That 10-inch scope showed way more detail from a dark site, but planets were still the only things with real color. The real game changer was seeing faint stuff like the Veil Nebula that just vanishes with light pollution.