Can someone help me understand how visual observation and imaging seems to produce vary different views of the same object? I get that the human eye can't do long time exposures, and have various filtered exposures overlaid on it, but the differences are amazing. What is the true rendition?
For example, I am working through O'Meara's Southern Gems book and last night (finally a clean clear night sky) was viewing: M83 (NGC5236) (Gem64), NGC5128 (Gem 61) , NGC3918 (Gem 54), and NGC 5139 (Gem 62).
I like O'Meara's photos because being in black and white they are close to what I can see through my scope, but they (and my observations) lack the stunning colour renditions and detail that the imaging guys seem to be able to produce with the same aperature size. Is this what drives people to astrophotography?
My son likes to dismiss imaging because his view is that it's often artificial in outcome and he want to see the photons from that object directly, and I get that.
