Stellarium: Accuracy of relescope images?

Question

Hi

Ive just downloaded Stellarium and set up the ocular view for my 130mm skywatcher scope.

How accurate are the images in ocular?

Ive just looked at the orion nebular in Stellarium and it suggests I will see real clouds with purple colouring.

Ive not (yet!) looked thru my scope at the orion nebula and was wondering on tge acciracy of the ocular image on Stellarium..?

Thanks all for your help

Answer 1

The images in Stellarium are mostly derived from Hubble Space Telescope images. While they are typically sized accurately, you don't have a 2+ meter space telescope, you have a 0.13 meter ground telescope. And yet, from a dark sky site, you should be able to see at least hints of what Stellarium shows, at least for brighter objects.



If you get to a really dark sky site, and it's really clear, don't just go for faint objects you've never seen before. M31 and M42 are even more interesting in really good conditions. The weather conspired to teach me this at an incredibly dark sky site.

Answer 2

Although I don't use Stellarium myself, I'm familiar with the images used by other software programs. These are mostly derived from long-exposure photographs which show details and especially colours which you will never see through the eyepiece of an amateur telescope. I have been a serious amateur astronomer for over 50 years, and I can count exactly THREE occasions when I observed colour in deep sky objects, and all three were with large aperture telescopes: 18 inches, 22 inches, and 74 inches. The only colour I have ever seen in other telescopes has been in double stars and planets. The reason is that the human eye requires a certain level of light before it can detect colour, and that requires either a very bright object (like a planet or star) or a very large aperture. With 130mm aperture, you will _never_ see colour in any deep sky object, and probably not in any planet either. Only a few double stars will be bright enough. Everything else will be rendered in shades of grey, normal for amateur astronomy.

Answer 3

I find that Stellarium is only realistic for very low magnifications, such as with binoculars. At higher magnifications, say 30x (which is still low for a scope) it's considerably optimistic.



Through your scope you can expect a glowing smudge of light with a general shape, but no colour and probably no fine detail.