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Hey Bowzer
If in your mind's eye you are expecting to visually perceive DSO's as portrayed by the excellent images you find on Ice In Space, Astronomy mag's etc then I'm sorry to say you will be disappointed.
These CCD images are the result of loooong exposures with electronic devices that are sensitive to the full range of colours of the DSO. The details and colour you see in these images are because the light has fallen onto the ccd recording chip and been collected linearly over several minutes.
Our eyes do not respond in the same way. We have Rods and Cones in our eyes that apparently help us “see”. I think Rods like daylight and allow us to see colour, whereas Cones kick in at night time and are poor at recording colour and they do not accumulate photons like a ccd chip or film.
Therefore, a visual look at e.g. NGC253 or M83, both wonderful S hemisphere galaxies, delivers a lot less wow and detail than an image.
Hope that makes sense.
Cheers
Dennis
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