Get your pink on !

[Earl]

Brian says its Pink !

 

 

[wimvb]

As far as I know, Hydrogen emits light at several wavelengths, H-alpha at approximately 650 nm, and several lines at 410 to 486 nm (blue colour).

The reason most astroimages show red Hydrogen clouds, is that NB/H-a imaging only collects the red 650 nm light. If you also use a Hydrogen-beta filter, you will also collect the blue light.

Since these two wavelengths come from the same source, you can take a shortcut and mix some of the red H-alpha in the blue channel of the image.

Either way, light from Hydrogen can be considered pink, or magenta, whichever you prefer.

In my image of the California nebula, taken with an unmodded DSLR, the signal in the blue channel is almost as strong as that in the red channel. This is a combination of Hydrogen emission in these colours, and my cameras sensitivity to these colours.

(second and third image in this post)

Someone with more knowledge about this, pleas correct me if I'm wrong.