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> In other words, ignore the colors. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "ignore". The colors, though somewhat arbitrarily chosen, do convey physical informa
by privong 10y ago
> In other words, ignore the colors.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "ignore". The colors, though somewhat arbitrarily chosen, do convey physical information. It may not be a "what your eye might see" image, but it does tell the viewer about the relative emission from hydrogen, oxygen, and singly-ionized nitrogen (for the Cat's Eye Nebula). So, the coloring isn't something that could be ignored.
One way to describe those types of images is "representative color".
- steve19 10y ago"Cat's Eye Nebula ... In real life, those wavelengths of light would be hard to distinguish for humans." The context of the my comment was how the photo compare to the naked eye. I used to take IR photos for fun (consumer camera with IR filter replaced with visible light filter), and used thermal and night vision technology at my job. They all relay useful information, but are not photo-realistic in anyway. An IR photo of Earth for example, useful but not photorealistic. http://bobqat.com/Essays/disteyes/color-ir.jpg http://bobqat.com/Essays/disteyes/color-ir.jpg I imagine the Cat's Eye just looks like a bright cloud :)
- privong 10y ago> The context of the my comment was how the photo compare to the naked eye. I agree that is true for your example of the Cat's Eye nebulae. I guess my response was to my (and presumably other's possible) mis-interpretation that "ignore the color" was aimed at color astronomy images in general.