What Does Space Really Look Like?

"They do however make terrible sandwiches"... LMAO!! Love the meat explanation! So simple and it changed my paradigm of bio-optics forever. You rule, Fraser!

If I was in the Enterprise I would have the techies san the nebula with whatever was available and project the enhance image on the screen and if I went out on EVA I would have it relayed to my suit screen. I don't ever want to see space eyeball wish, they would just pop.

Not sure I completely agree with this one. Sure there are plenty of photos that are based on narrow band filters, such as for hydrogen, oxygen and sulfur emission. But many photos are made with simpler red, blue and green filters that when combined are a reasonable representation of the response of our eyes. I think the main issue is not that these objects have no color that we could see, but rather that the light is so weak that our eyes could never sense the colors. Astro photos usually require minutes to hours of exposure, while our eyes get only a snapshot.

Thoughts: I already knew this, but it would be helpful to show us, to see with our very human eyes, a photo without the wonderful element-filters. You know, un-enhanced. I read or heard, as a punchline, (someone will remember the source) that the true color of space objects is beige. Guess that is true. Our eyes are miracles of engineering, and I, being a visual kind of person, am very glad for this. Love, love love the colors to be found here on earth, as well as the enhanced Hubble, Chandra, SODO, etc. images. These eyes are all we have to see it all with, so go for the filters! that being said, please post a actual/realcolor image, Fraser. Thank you.

We can gather 15 to 20 seconds with our eyes?! Really? I thought we can't do that!

I'd love to see the night sky from inside a globular clustrr. That must be an amazing sight!