colouring nebulas

[that_guy]

how do you colour nebulas? is there a program (possibly freeware?) or is there a filter that filters out the colour?

thanks,
Tony

[Octane]

Tony,

You don't colour them. The camera exposes for minutes at a time and captures the photons that our eyes can't readily perceive as colour.

Combining many, many images together, helps the colours to pop and smooths out any noise that may appear in a single image.

H

[Paul Haese]

Tony just for your information plural nebula is written as nebulae and pronounced as nebuli.

As H said you don't get much colour when viewing. Only in very large telescopes does one see colour. The view through most telescopes is monochromatic. This is because of our eye light receptors, that being rods and cones. Our night vision as a species is not great and so colour reception is only possible on bright objects such as some stars, planets and very occassionally Nebula through large telescopes which provide more light.