[dylan604]

Ignoring magnification and only considering visible light, Hubble imagery is a colorized version of what you could see if you could stare at an object for hours at a time while accumulating every photon during that time at a 0Hz refresh rate into a single image rather than just seeing new faint photons at a constant refresh rate.

[augustuspolius]

Is it possible to visualize how a human eye would see Pillars of Creation in real time? This always confused me with Hubble’s colorized photos.

[sbierwagen]

Here's a stacked series of exposures adding up to 36 minutes of the Eagle nebula (of which Pillars of Creation is a zoomed in segment) https://noctilove.co.uk/portfolio/m16-eagle-nebula/

About what you'd see from a 16 inch telescope in a superb dark sky location. A red smudge with hints of finer detail.

[augustuspolius]

Thank you. If I was in a spaceship at a much closer distance to the object than I am right now, would I be able to see the dust and the shape similar to what we see on the photos? Or is this all invisible to the human eye?

[sbierwagen]

Sure. It's a physical object, reflecting broadband light from nearby stars. The colors would be different, and you might not see the same fine structure without filters, like how the Sun looks very different through a Calcium K line filter https://thelonelyphoton.com/2022/01/08/solar-imaging/

Given its size the density is probably pretty low, though. If you got right up next to it you wouldn't see much, in the same way a fog bank gets less visible when you walk towards it.

[augustuspolius]

Thank you - your explanation and that photo of the Sun with the Calcium K filter are very helpful.

With so many colorized photos of space objects and so many artist impressions, I wasn’t sure whether space is just a black void to the human eye or we are capable of seeing the gorgeous colors of different nebulae and such.

[fhars]

Yes, just open you favorite paint program, create a new image, select black color, select the fill tool, and click into the image.

We don't spend oodles of money to build sensitive instruments to observe things you could see with the unaided eye.

[dylan604]

Take the colorized image to B&W, and that would be closer to what the human eye could see.

If you've ever been to a dark sky location so that you could see the Milky Way, then that's about what you'd see. Our eyes just are not sensitive enough to pick out colors. Even in a telescope, viewing objects like Orion's Nebula, which is incredibly bright, it is just B&W in the eye piece. Viewing Andromeda galaxy is also just B&W.

[wumpus]

Scientists are unconcerned with that question. Your eye is nothing like the Hubble. Your eye isn't that useful for doing science. Hubble images are.

[astrange]

Well, eyes are actually very useful for doing science, I think.

[kortilla]

The question wasn’t about scientists concerns.