Spider Season.

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by alpal

That's true,
in the end we're just having fun -
we're not trying to be scientists and in fact
even the Hubble and JWST pictures take liberties with absolute values
of brightness from different filters for their published pictures.

Look at the Hubble pics for Ha, S2 & O3 filters.
Ha is much brighter than the other 2 but they normalise it
to make an interesting picture and it shows which elements are shining
and where they are and their relevant structures.

Well, following on from what I stated earlier, when you add colours that are not even part of the human visual spectrum to an image you can certainly generate some striking imagery.

...but that's the rub....it's "imagery" and not a view we'd see with a warm human eye.

And it can be fun highlighting a particular ionization region etc. The downside is many think the view is "real"....i.e that's what you see staring out of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

Fun sure. Colours of nature? No, they are simply artistic license.

[alpal]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Well, following on from what I stated earlier, when you add colours that are not even part of the human visual spectrum to an image you can certainly generate some striking imagery.

...but that's the rub....it's "imagery" and not a view we'd see with a warm human eye.

And it can be fun highlighting a particular ionization region etc. The downside is many think the view is "real"....i.e that's what you see staring out of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

Fun sure. Colours of nature? No, they are simply artistic license.

Hi Peter,
I've thought about this.
We are right inside the Milky Way yet the only colours we see
with the naked eye are the colours of different stars - not any nebulosity.
Even with a large Newt. observers at the eyepiece
may only see faint colours in the Orion Nebula if they are very lucky.
https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/7...or-in-nebulas/

Therefore all pictures we represent here are the result of integration
over longer periods of time than what the naked eye can perceive.
Therefore can a picture ever be real?
Yes - they are real if our eyes were better than they are with faint light.

cheers
Allan

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by alpal

.........
Therefore can a picture ever be real?
Yes - they are real if our eyes were better than they are with faint light.

cheers
Allan

OK, in that sense no picture is "real". But images that faithfully reproduce the colours of a dim scene can easily be done.

For example: a landscape being illuminated by moonlight.

Not much colour if any, is perceived by eye.

Yet a brief time exposure (using daylight colour temperature, as the moon reflects sunlight!) reveals all the colours you can see during daylight.
(this was a photo category at the Malin awards a while ago)

The time exposure does not bizarrely turn grass purple....which was the point I hoping to simply make.

P.S.
As an example, I've now uploaded an picture I took while ago, at Ayers Rock (or whatever it's called now) which was taken a little after midnight. Yet looks like it was taken at midday. I'll let interested viewers join the dots

[alpal]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

OK, in that sense no picture is "real". But images that faithfully reproduce the colours of a dim scene can easily be done.

For example: a landscape being illuminated by moonlight.

Not much colour if any, is perceived by eye.

Yet a brief time exposure (using daylight colour temperature, as the moon reflects sunlight!) reveals all the colours you can see during daylight.
(this was a photo category at the Malin awards a while ago)

The time exposure does not bizarrely turn grass purple....which was the point I hoping to simply make.

P.S.
As an example, I've now uploaded an picture I took while ago, at Ayers Rock (or whatever it's called now) which was taken a little after midnight. Yet looks like it was taken at midday. I'll let interested viewers join the dots

Thanks Peter,
that's a great pic of Ayers Rock.
You have the correct colours just from moonlight.

cheers
Allan