Telescope Reviews: Drawings

To the naked eye, the space inside the Orion Nebula near a star would most likely be a bit brighter than the naked eye smudge you see of it from here. There would be an overall dim glow rather than the mostly dark background we see around Earth. Think of something a bit brighter than the Milky Way but all around. I doubt there'd be any colour visible, but if so it would probably be a greenish/blueish grey (the red seen in real photographic and electronic images is emphasised by those processes and needs long exposures to register).

There could very possibly be some other very bright stars nearby. Conversely, a new star might still be in its own pocket of dense gas and dust with no other stars visible at all.

But all that's only relevant if you wish to stick to absolute "naked eye" realism. Most space artists will use some degree of artistic licence in order to better illustrate astronomical features or make a pleasing work of art. In that case you could add colour as well as swirly clouds of gas, etc.

It's a long time since I've used "traditional media" for space art. For painting I used acrylics on glass or masonite; and for drawing I used pastel chalks on black poster board. That was decades ago (shudder) - now I use these new-fangled computery things.

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Peter

10x50 binocs
ED80 'frac
10" f/4.3 Newtonian alt/az
Bryce