query on OrionPosted By Herbert Kraus |
Joe: Your predicament is common for first-time viewers. At public star parties I display two photos of M42, one taken by the Hubble Space Telescope that everyone has seen and expects to see through my telescope's eyepiece, and the other representing what is actually visible. I will attach the second one of these two photos to this posting to illustrate; it obviously is nothing like any of the M42 images taken by skillful astro-imagers and laboriously processed to bring out details and red-green-yellow coloration that no-one has ever seen either with the naked eye or through a telescope.Joseph Babendreier said:I was particularly interested in looking at M42. At least I think that is what I was looking at...It was must first time looking at a nebula...I was surprised to see how ghostly it looked. I could not make out any edges. Is this normal?