Apparent color in the orion nebula?

Clif wrote:

I had just completed a 10" Dobsonian designed to be
taken apart and nested together compactly. The whole thing occupied less
space than a briefcase and easily fit in my luggage

Could we see some pic's of that scope?


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I've heard people say that as you age, colors change.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time on the orion nebula. I had a really nice
Criterion Dynascope 6". I remember the nebula being remarkably green,
almost bright green. Then I didn't do much viewing for 10 years and it has
virtually changed colors. It can only be one of 3 things:

1. The color has changed
2. My ability to see color has changed
3. There's something wrong with one of my scopes.

My guess the orion hasn't changed color much in the last 25 years. I'm
pretty confident it has in the last 15.
I know my eyesight has changed significantly during that time (and I stare
at computers all day long, I'm sure that doesn't help).
Scopes have only gotten better although I'd put that Dynascope up against
most in it's class.

My best guess is #2 is right.

Mike.


"Jon Isaacs" wrote in message
...
From my highly light polluted porch (chicago suburbs), the nebula
appears very clearly green.

My experience as well. The other night it was particularly green.

Try this one one for size. Best to do this when the moon is near full
because
it involves ruining your dark adaption.

A scope of at least 10 inch preferable:

Step #`1. Find Orion Nebula

Step #2. Stare at the moon with your observing eye through the scope or a
bright light for long enough to be sure that you dark adaptation is gone
and
that you are relying on your color vision.

Step #3. Find the Orion Nebula with your other eye and then view it with
your
"observing eye" (not dark adapted) eye with a low power eyepiece.

What I seem to see doing this is a smaller but more colorful Orion Nebula.

My hypothesis is that since night vision is essentially greyscale, by
bleaching
out the receptors, that greyscale signal no longer overwhelms the color
signal
from the cones and if the image is bright enough (low power, large exit
pupil)
then one can see the color....

For what its worth...

jon isaacs

Mark De Smet wrote in message ...
I recently got an orion XT10 IS, and although I have not had a chance to
get to a dark site, I did have a chance to take a peek at the orion
nebula from my porch. Having only seen it before in lower quality and
much smaller apperature scopes, it always appeared as a grey fuzzy.

From my highly light polluted porch (chicago suburbs), the nebula
appears very clearly green. (I am not using any filters) None of the
pictures I have seen show it as green.

Is this the real color? (visible wavelengths) Or perhaps is it that my
eye is just more sensitive to green and not getting enough light to see
the other parts of the spectrum? Or possibly just a funny result of
light pollution?

Mark

Mark,

In my former 18" and my current 22", M42 is very clearly green and
pink. The colors are quire real. The color - expecially the pink -
tends to vanish at higher power (above 250x), depending on observing
conditions.
Cler skies,

Shneor Sherman

From the WKAA observing site at the Golden Pond Observatory last
Saturday night, M42's central nebulosity appeared STRIKINGLY green
through a 5" refractor.... based on the experiences others have posted
here, I suspect this is highly subject to an individual's eyesight.

Clear Skies!

Jason Martin

"Jason Martin" wrote in message
om...
From the WKAA observing site at the Golden Pond Observatory last
Saturday night, M42's central nebulosity appeared STRIKINGLY green
through a 5" refractor....

Did it have green coatings? ;-)

(That's a joke.)

starman wrote in message ...
Clif wrote:

I had just completed a 10" Dobsonian designed to be
taken apart and nested together compactly. The whole thing occupied less
space than a briefcase and easily fit in my luggage

Could we see some pic's of that scope?

I put a picture on my webpage:

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/__121b...Ejavd0fh3pc =

Note that this is not my planetary imaging scope. The briefcase scope
has an f/4.7 mirror and a compact Dobsonian mounting. The pictures on
the site were taken with my 10" f/6 which has a Barlow mounted on axis
before the diagonal to give about f/18 at the Newtonian focus and is
attached permanently to a Losmandy German Equatorial mounting in my
observatory.
Clif

In article , Jon Isaacs wrote:
From my highly light polluted porch (chicago suburbs), the nebula
appears very clearly green.

My experience as well. The other night it was particularly green.

Try this one one for size. Best to do this when the moon is near full because
it involves ruining your dark adaption.

A scope of at least 10 inch preferable:

Step #`1. Find Orion Nebula

Step #2. Stare at the moon with your observing eye through the scope or a
bright light for long enough to be sure that you dark adaptation is gone and
that you are relying on your color vision.

Step #3. Find the Orion Nebula with your other eye and then view it with your
"observing eye" (not dark adapted) eye with a low power eyepiece.

What I seem to see doing this is a smaller but more colorful Orion Nebula.

My hypothesis is that since night vision is essentially greyscale, by bleaching
out the receptors, that greyscale signal no longer overwhelms the color signal
from the cones and if the image is bright enough (low power, large exit pupil)
then one can see the color....

For what its worth...

jon isaacs

Possibly related: twilight colors of bright comets?

I remember several times, for Hyakutake, Hale-Bopp and
once for the binocular comet Lee in spring of '99,
that in twilight the coma would look distinctly blue-greenish.
But looking at the same comets in full darkness, I wouldn't
get that impression, neither naked-eye nor through binoculars
or a telescope. Wonder if the background twilight gives the same
effect you're pointing out here.

Stuart

Mark De Smet wrote:


I recently got an orion XT10 IS, and although I have not had a chance to
get to a dark site, I did have a chance to take a peek at the orion
nebula from my porch. Having only seen it before in lower quality and
much smaller apperature scopes, it always appeared as a grey fuzzy.

From my highly light polluted porch (chicago suburbs), the nebula
appears very clearly green. (I am not using any filters) None of the
pictures I have seen show it as green.

Is this the real color? (visible wavelengths) Or perhaps is it that my
eye is just more sensitive to green and not getting enough light to see
the other parts of the spectrum? Or possibly just a funny result of
light pollution?

Mark


Yes it's real color. My Coulter 13.1 clearly shows it as green from my
moderately light polluted NY skies. The Andromeda galaxy is clearly
yellow/golden.


--
Knoppix Linux

I had my new orion svp 8 out for a test drive tonight, I also saw the orion
nebula as green. It was neat seeing it thru my own scope though!

Bill


"Tom Randy" wrote in message
...
Mark De Smet wrote:


I recently got an orion XT10 IS, and although I have not had a chance to
get to a dark site, I did have a chance to take a peek at the orion
nebula from my porch. Having only seen it before in lower quality and
much smaller apperature scopes, it always appeared as a grey fuzzy.

From my highly light polluted porch (chicago suburbs), the nebula
appears very clearly green. (I am not using any filters) None of the
pictures I have seen show it as green.

Is this the real color? (visible wavelengths) Or perhaps is it that my
eye is just more sensitive to green and not getting enough light to see
the other parts of the spectrum? Or possibly just a funny result of
light pollution?

Mark


Yes it's real color. My Coulter 13.1 clearly shows it as green from my
moderately light polluted NY skies. The Andromeda galaxy is clearly
yellow/golden.


--
Knoppix Linux

Etok wrote in message ...
Shneor Sherman wrote:


Mark,

In my former 18" and my current 22", M42 is very clearly green and
pink. The colors are quire real. The color - expecially the pink -
tends to vanish at higher power (above 250x), depending on observing
conditions.
Cler skies,

Shneor Sherman

It's still green, pink and violet in your former 18", which has lost
fifty pounds. I expect the mods will be complete by mid march, so I'll
send you some photos. I LOVE this scope.
Thanks.
Etok



I'll have to look for the violet - I can't say I ever noticed it.
Where do you see that color?
Thanks,
Shneor Sherman __________________________________________________ _____________________________
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