Telescope Reviews: Re: Is it possible to see the nebula with colour?

Don and others. *Please read the referenced papers*. You can get them at any University Library.

As for what concerns the size of the scope: it does not increase surface brightness. So If a nebula is under cones threshold it will never get above whatever the size of the scope (see Bill Ferris' linked document).

As for what concerns the limits of mesopic vision I again invite you to *read* scientific papers and the related experiments. Bill, when I say 20 I mean the surface brightness *of an extended object*, not the environmental conditions for being dark adapted. Sure, you see the laser beam red, orange stars, green leds etc because they have very high surface brightness (not related with average environmental illumination).

Please read the scientific literature. Here is the "state of the art" referenced by paper 1.

ASTM. ~1994!. Standards on Color and Appearance Measurement. Phil-
adelphia: American Society for Testing and Materials.

Boynton, R.M. & Olson, C.X. ~1987!. Locating basic colors in the OSA
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Brown, W.R.J. ~1951!. The influence of luminance level on visual sensi-
tivity to color differences. Journal of the Optical Society of America 41,
684 – 688.

Buck, S.L. ~2004!. Rod-cone interactions in human vision. In The Visual
Neurosciences, eds. Chalupa, L.M. & Werner, J.S., pp. 863–878.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Cao, D., Pokorny, J. & Smith, V.C. ~2005 a !. Associating color appear-
ance with the cone chromaticity space. Vision Research 45, 1929–1934.

Cao, D., Pokorny, J. & Smith, V.C. ~2005 b !. Matching rod percepts with
cone stimuli. Vision Research 45, 2119–2128.

CIE. ~1951!. Proceedings 1951, Vol. 3, p. 37, Paris: Bureau Central de la
CIE.

Hecht, S. & Hsia, Y. ~1945!. Dark adaptation following light adaptation to
red and white lights. Journal Optical Society of America 35, 261–267.

Ishida, T. ~2002!. Color identification data obtained from photopic to
mesopic illuminance levels. Color Research & Application 27, 252–259.

Kohlrausch, A. ~1931!. Tagesehen, Dämmersehen, Adaptation. In Hand-
buch der Normalen und Pthologischen Physiologie, eds. Bethe, A.,

Bergmann, G.V., Embden, G. & Ellinger, A., pp. 1499–1594. Ber-
lin: Springer.

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MacAdam, D.L. ~1978!. Colorimetric Data for samples of OSA uniform
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McCann, J.J. & Benton, J.L. ~1969!. Interaction of the long-wave cones
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Middleton, W.E.K. & Mayo, E.G. ~1952!. The appearance of colors in
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Nagel, W. ~1924!. Appendix: Adaptation, Twilight Vision and the Duplic-
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Smith, V.C. & Pokorny, J. ~1975!. Spectral sensitivity of the foveal cone
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Walkey, H.C., Barbur, J.L., Harlow, J.A. & Makous, W. ~2001!.
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Edited by Mauro Da Lio (11/24/07 06:04 PM)

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