[Shiraz (Ray)]

Originally Posted by cometcatcher

I dunno, I'm just in it for the pretty pictures. Seems to be the way for deep sky anyway. For many of us it's more of a form of art than science. The colours rendered to the final image are not necessarily the "real" colours. But then that goes for both amateur and pro astronomers.

Do we want to please ourselves or our piers? In photography there's "rules". The rule of thirds, don't let a portrait subject's nose cross the cheek line, etc etc. Some colours go well together, some don't. Sorry Australia but green and gold together are puke! But that's my opinion.

Are there any "rules" for astrophotography? I don't think there is a correct answer for what colour something should be. That died long ago with the emergence of the Hubble palette lol.

P.S. I'm also mucking about with daytime IR photography. With channel swapping the colours can be really bizarre, but fun!

You make a great point with the Hubble palette - no realistic colours there at all

Originally Posted by RickS

Interesting questions, Ray.

I often start with an eXcalibrator colour calibration which is based on objective quantitative measures. Then I tweak the heck out of it

We're not generally producing science images so I think some artistic licence is only fair.

Cheers,
Rick.

Thanks for the ideas Rick - will have to try excalibrator when I have some free time

Originally Posted by alpal

Ray,
Hi Ray,
I now think that star colours should be correct & artistic license
allows an image processor to boost their colour.
I haven't always followed this but now try to.
It can be difficult due to halos when using Ha as luminance.

If you equalise the humps in RGB and after later doing a minor LAB colour boost
certain stars are either Red Yellow or Blue etc & then
when checking many other pics you find the same colours -
then boost them to at least show their real colour.

I think that adds authenticity to the image and is valuable data
that should be highlighted by a slight boost in colour.

I'll think about your other questions.

cheers
Allan

Thanks Allan. This philosophy seems to give nice results.

Originally Posted by billdan

Redshift could pull a very distant blue star into the green zone.

Might do at that ---will have to think about that

thanks for the ideas - there is clearly a diversity of opinion on how/if colour can be related to reality. I guess my hope was to use my scope as a "Starship Enterprise" so that I could get an idea of what things might really look like if I could get out there. Others see the production of a striking artwork as the goal and fidelity is not necessary for that. I guess my real question was about the various philosophies people have, but I didn't realise it at the time.

thanks Ray