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Lots of eye-brain-mind stuff going on here.....

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In my 25" I have seen color lots of times, in lots of objects, including the brighter emission and reflection nebula scattered across the sky. I would have bet a lot of money that the colors I saw were real.

However, after seeing several off those illusion examples, I can no longer swear that they were real. I mean, that illusion of the 2 rubic-cubes, for example, I swear that the squares on the left are blue and the squares on the right are yellow, but the mask makes it clear that both are an identicle shade of gray. After this experience, how can I believe anything I see at the eypiece anymore?

Well, if these colors are due to a set of circumstances that trick my brain into believing they are real, or whether I really am seeing these colors, it matters not at all to me; I will continue to enjoy them nonetheless.

I assume that the scope of this thread is limited to seeing colors in bright nebula, correct? I have seen lots of different colors in lots of planetary nebulae, in lots of telescopes, including the 82" at McDonald Observatory in Texas, where several objects were simply kaleidoscopic; words could not describe the colors I saw in NGC 3242, the Ghost of Jupiter.

Real or imagined, seeing colors in nebulae is still a measure of the quality of the instrument and the quality of that particular night's sky.

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Paul
25" Obsession
5.5" Newt - finder (Cometcatcher)
Hutech 22 X 100 binos w/LPS-P2 filters
Canon 10 X 30 IS binos

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