by Ann » Sun Oct 04, 2020 6:42 am
Since I am Starship Asterisk*'s resident Color Commentator, I felt the need to show you a picture of the Orion Nebula in true color. No one can be better suited for that than David Malin, who took extremely great care with his colors and took all his color photographs through red, green and blue glass plates.
David Malin explained that the center of the Orion Nebula looks very bright and slightly yellowish due to the mixture of greenish OIII emission and red Hα emission (and some bluish Hβ emission, too). The center of the Orion Nebula is highly ionized, and the overall color of the emission is yellowish. The rest of the Orion Nebula is dominated by reddish Hα emission, but it does contain other emission lines, too, which dilutes its red color.
Check out this very fine widefield picture of Orion. (The 3.76 MB full size version is
here.) You can see that the Orion Nebula is quite small, very bright, and its color can be described as a pale shade of pink. By contrast, Barnard's Loop, as well as the background of the Horsehead Nebula, look very red.
So if you want some advice from me, take a look at the pictures by David Malin and u/Cokeblob11 to find out what the Orion Nebula would "really" look like, if the cones in our eyes were many, many times more sensitive to extremely faint colored light!
Ann
[float=left][img3="Orion in Oxygen, Hydrogen and Sulfur. Photo: César Blanco González."]https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2010/m42HSO_gonzalez_960.jpg[/img3][/float][float=right][img3="The Orion Nebula in true color. Photo: David Malin. © Anglo-Australian Observatory." ]https://www.messier.seds.org/Jpg/m42.jpg[/img3][/float]
Since I am Starship Asterisk*'s resident Color Commentator, I felt the need to show you a picture of the Orion Nebula in true color. No one can be better suited for that than David Malin, who took extremely great care with his colors and took all his color photographs through red, green and blue glass plates.
David Malin explained that the center of the Orion Nebula looks very bright and slightly yellowish due to the mixture of greenish OIII emission and red Hα emission (and some bluish Hβ emission, too). The center of the Orion Nebula is highly ionized, and the overall color of the emission is yellowish. The rest of the Orion Nebula is dominated by reddish Hα emission, but it does contain other emission lines, too, which dilutes its red color.
[float=right][img3="Widefield Orion. Photo: u/Cokeblob11
."]https://preview.redd.it/w5h7oax77gf21.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=c4c87e622a78b458252a320ff6c59f7fe7e86d12[/img3][/float]
Check out this very fine widefield picture of Orion. (The 3.76 MB full size version is [url=https://preview.redd.it/w5h7oax77gf21.jpg?auto=webp&s=27853cfc8bf6eeb4a605aeca8e9f9378704ef3cb]here[/url].) You can see that the Orion Nebula is quite small, very bright, and its color can be described as a pale shade of pink. By contrast, Barnard's Loop, as well as the background of the Horsehead Nebula, look very red.
So if you want some advice from me, take a look at the pictures by David Malin and u/Cokeblob11 to find out what the Orion Nebula would "really" look like, if the cones in our eyes were many, many times more sensitive to extremely faint colored light!
Ann