I thought the Orion Nebula was just a fuzzy blob until I saw it through a 10-inch scope

For years, I only saw it as a gray smudge in my old binoculars and figured the colorful photos were all fake. Then a friend let me use his big Dobsonian last fall, and I could actually see the green glow and the Trapezium stars clear as day. Has anyone else had a basic piece of gear totally change how you see a famous object?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_nora19d ago

Green glow? Seriously? My club's 12 inch dob only ever shows it as gray and white, even from a dark site. You must have had some insane seeing that night or your friend's mirror is just magic. I've never heard of anyone visually picking up color in M42 outside of long exposure photos.

lucashenderson19d ago

Remember thinking the Andromeda Galaxy was just a faint cloud. Borrowed a decent refractor one night and finally saw the dust lanes. Felt like a total fraud for all my earlier "observations.

the_mary19d ago

Wait you could actually see dust lanes with a borrowed scope? What kind of refractor was this, some museum piece?