Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike
Cheers Guys 
I think a lot of people open an image, take a quick look, form a first visual impression and move on, that's it, which is fine of course, t'is a free World...but if you take the time to really look at an image there is often more that comes through. Apart from the pleasing level of details showing as a result of the better than average seeing on hand, what I am most pleased about with this image is that it very clearly shows the varied distribution of the three emission lines. Look around the image for a while and some complex variations become evident, you can see red (SII), Green (Ha) and Blue(OIII) mixing all over the image, there are nuanced OIII blues spread here and there with the Ha and OIII mixing to form a glowing turquoise colour in places, the SII and Ha mix in places to form a lovely mustard green, the Ibex jaw area is completely mixed with the three emissions forming an intricate mosaic of colours. Many other images of this nebula simply don't show this, so while they may look more pleasing to some eyes from an aesthetic stand point, they often don't show the full scene with these three emission lines 
Mike |
Very poetically and aptly put, Mike. Agree totally.
The approach that you'tr advocating and achieving allows one to then go on to think about the physics of what is going on. The greener bits show where the bulk stuff is, the blue bits show where the hardest ultraviolet ionization and sometimes shock energy might be, and the red bits show where, in addition, more processed, old-star stuff is. If we try to make the whole image look a uniform magenta-red, as if it were a 1960's film shot, we miss out on the subtleties you are showing.
Best,
MBJ