Nebulae

Nebulae look great at all image scales, from 1x naked eye to super-high resolution close-ups.  Nebulae are also the most colorful deep space objects which make for dramatic aesthetics.

Please note all of these nebulae are taken in “white light”, meaning these colors more closely represent what the human eye would see if these objects were bright enough for our eyes to detect color. False color images, like those taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, are also very dramatic, but the neon greens and blues are not what we would normally see.  A narrowband filtered nebula also has far more contrast than a white light nebula, since the broad spectrum lets more starlight and skyglow pass through, resulting in big, bright stars (which may actually detract from the images).  Many were taken LRGB (luminance, red, green and blue channels), with the exception of the Cave Nebula which combined Hydrogen-alpha with LRGB to boost the nebula contrast slightly.