Curious about those false color nebula images people keep posting

I keep seeing photos where people label blues and purples as 'real' colors from nebulas, but my understanding is those wavelengths are invisible to the human eye. The Hubble palette is awesome for science but it's not what you'd actually see through a telescope. Am I wrong to think we should be clearer about what's natural color versus mapped data?

2 comments

2 Comments

lily57428d ago

Yeah get yourself a copy of a basic astronomy guide that shows the difference between LRGB and narrowband palettes. I had the same confusion until I started comparing my own DSLR shots to what Hubble posts. The blues in most nebula shots are usually OIII or other ionized gases that just aren't visible to our eyes at all. A good example is the Orion Nebula which looks mostly greenish-gray through an eyepiece but people post it with purple and blue all over the place. It would help if people just said "this is mapped" or "this is natural color" in their captions, right?

daniel_martinez8428d ago

Did you try hitting up Cloudy Nights or the r/astrophotography subreddit? Those places are full of people who post their capture details and will straight up tell you if it's a false color composite. What eventually clicked for me was when I started shooting Orion with a simple UV/IR cut filter on my DSLR - the core came out that same greenish-gray color I saw through my telescope, but when I took off the filter for a "modified" shot, the hydrogen popped out dark red and the OIII showed up as a faint teal. That's when I realized most of the crazy colors in astro pics are from filters doing the heavy lifting, not what you'd actually see. It does drive me nuts when people don't label their images though, especially the ones that slap Hubble palette on a OSC camera shot and call it natural.