Jump to content

Narrowband

Colour perception at the eyepiece


Astronut

Recommended Posts

I understand that colour perception depends on the eyes cones on the retina and the rods come into play when night vision is in use for low light conditions. However, the rods aren't as colour sensitive as the cones. Many people have different perceptions of colour and some are colour blind seeing different colour palettes to those that aren't.

I can see the Orion nebula with a definite green colour and I've read reports where others see more blue or no colour at all. Some eyepieces can introduce a false tint and the aperture may play a part too ie. more aperture brings in more light which may activate a few cones to detect colour.

I was looking around the net for info and stumbled across this link:

http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77

It's an interesting test to see how well your eyes are doing in detecting subtle hue changes. You have to drag the coloured squares on the top row of each of the 4 tests and put them in hue order graduating from the first fixed square on the top row to the last fixed square on its own on the bottom row.

I thought it might be interesting to see what everybody scores, just for fun :)

Try to be honest and do the test once. The differences in colours between adjacent squares are subtle so even on an uncallibrated monitor it may be OK. That is, the colours may vary from one monitor to another but on any given monitor the differences should be the same.

I scored 4 which I'm very pleased with given my age. I'm short-sighted and slightly astigmatic but my colour perception is quite sharp.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 for me, surely this will depend on the monitor's colour profile, ambient light etc?

I know for sure, that there is a slight noticeable difference in colour perception between my left and right eye, at least that was my excuse when I jumped a red light :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know for sure, that there is a slight noticeable difference in colour perception between my left and right eye, at least that was my excuse when I jumped a red light :)

Isn't that true for everybody? Kinda like one foot slightly bigger than the other?

Or maybe that's just me :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My score was 20, but just for grins and giggles I'm going to do it over and over again to see what I can come up with. :)

Knowing that the perceived color in secondary double stars can be influenced by the color of the primary, I set the rows up as good as I could and then reviewed each row while covering the background color. I held my hands in front of my eyes, leaving a horizontal slit which just showed the color strip. There were definite differences... whether my corrections made my score better or worse remains to be seen.

Aside from that, I'm sure all of our monitors are calibrated differently, not to mention being different types and brands than the one the test was set up on. Lots of fun though, thanks for posting it!

:thumbright:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

W00t! I got zero. Nice to know that something about this aging body still works. It's about the only thing mind :)

Perhaps that explains why my night vision isn't so good, I have more cones than rods :)

There might be something in that re. cones and rods. I was reading some other article somewhere where a reasonably large telescope was set up and various observers were asked to say what colours they saw when looking at a given object. Kids reported vivid colours (exagerations? :( ) and adults ranged from bright or subtle blues and greens to no colour at all. I guess we're all wired up differently :D

It seems that green is the primary colour night adjusted eyes are most sensitive to and red is the most insensitive (I guess that's why red lights don't affect night vision and some nebulae are tricky to see).

Carol: I didn't know a perceived secondary colour could be influenced by the primary colour in a double star - that's interesting :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Me and Mrs Tiny are both over 60. I scored 52, she scored 119. Mrs Tiny says as this was my machine she was in a hurry (so it's my fault).

I know I have for many years seen colours more vividly in my left eye than the right. In fact they see orange/yellow as completely different (as in the left one shows orange yellow as the right one sees it as orange) though both see the full spectrum. Given this no wonder people argue over the colours of stars.

Nice test though - do they use the results at all?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I got 12, with poorest discrimination being in green-blue. Which of course is the only colour you ever see on deep-sky objects through a small scope...

Going back to the Orion neb (which is where this thread started) I can never decide if it's green, blue or grey - I guess my test result bears that out. But judging colour in low light is psychological as much as physiological - just try looking at an object of known colour in dim light and ask yourself what colour it *really* looks.

I've detected variations in colour shade in the Orion neb on occasions (when not using a filter), but not of a kind I could put a name to. I've certainly never seen red on any DSO with an 8-inch. Stars are of course another matter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My score came up with :

You have perfect color vision!

it didn't exactly give me a score just the above.

Edit: I didn't realise that it gives you the score after you submit your details, mine said 0.

--

Martyn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

11 for me.

A friend sent this to me last year. Also makes interesting viewing.

Rob

"For those of use who try to 'get the colours right' in photos or are worried about colour casts, it is incredible to see just how the eye/brain can be fooled.

Take a look at these examples. Go to this site:

http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/OpticalIllusions/illusions.htm

and click on 'Colour Perception'. "

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.