Neptune not so blue

[Zermelo]

This is interesting.
Even in a 6", I see Neptune as a slightly greenish blue, and Uranus as a slightly bluish green. I wonder if I have been subconsciously biasing my observations?

https://www.space.com/uranus-neptune-similar-shades-of-blue-voyager-2-images

 

Edited January 5 by Zermelo
Typo

[Saganite]

That is interesting.  I observed both in my 6" during November and whilst Neptune appeared pale blue, Uranus I saw as Greyish green. Not sure about Voyager's observations....🤣

Edited January 5 by Saganite

[Stu]

Was just about to post on this after seeing it on Sky News

https://news.sky.com/story/new-images-reveal-neptune-and-uranus-are-not-the-colours-we-thought-they-were-13042392

I see Uranus as greyish green, and Neptune as quite a deep blue, definitely different colours so I find this quite intriguing. I wonder why what we see differs from this finding?

[John]

Interesting.

My perception of the colour tints of these planets is similar to @Stu's and @Saganite's. Generally I would describe Neptune as pale blue.

When I have observed either planet close to the Moon, the colour tints seem to be noticeably stronger. 

I often wonder if younger observers eyes are more sensitive to colour tints ? - that often has been the case when I've been sharing the views at outreach events.

 

 

Edited January 5 by John

[Nik271]

I've always seen Uranus as a pale green-gray, while Neptune is definitely a blue dot at lower magnification. At high magnification it starts to lose its colour and looks closer to Uranus, probably has to do with my colour perception at small exit pupil.

[PeterStudz]

An interesting topic. Something I’ve thought about and surprised that it doesn’t come up more often. I’ve also thought about how people decided on colours when imaging the plants. Even on my simple smartphone images I can come up with all sorts of colours during editing & processing. 

Visually I generally see Uranus as bluish-green to grey-green. And Neptune as a deep blue. Although when I’ve stuck my phone on the eyepiece for Uranus there’s more of a blue-green colour. Cameras see colours differently. 

But I’m sure that there’s more going on. Eg with different eyepieces and magnification I see slightly different colours. And in poor seeing I’ve noticed Neptune as more greyish. In good seeing more blue-ish. Colours on all the planets better in good seeing. Transparency makes a difference too.

Then there’s eyes and how adapted I am to the dark. Uranus and Neptune appear more grey if my eyes are dark adapted. 

My  12 yrs daughter’s eyes are definitely better than mine. Eg she says that see can see colours in some of the brighter DSO. For M42 she often says that she can see pink. And on odd occasions during good seeing she says that she can see what she describes as a “dot in the middle” of Jupiters GRS. Now, as hard as I try I’ve never been able to see that!

Edited January 5 by PeterStudz

[Mr Spock]

"A team from the University of Oxford has used data from the Hubble Space Telescope's Imaging Spectrograph to show the planets in their true colours."

That would be false spectrographic colours, not visual. I know what I see!

[Kon]

In my captures, Uranus has a greyish/greenish-blue tint (more towards greyish) and Neptune very pale blue; visually I see Uranus greyish and Neptune with a tint of blue. I really have to up the saturation for Uranus to get the greenish-bluish through and by the time I up my Neptune it becomes the characteristic darkish blue. I am not convinced the new representation is correct. 

I took their image and I applied a curves on the brightness and the two images actually resemble the old colours so not same shade of blue. Uranus is overstretched in their processing as the whites are a bit blown.

Edited January 5 by Kon

[Ratlet]

This is the astronomer equivalent of the "The Dress" from a few years ago I feel: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress

For me I think this just provides further evidence for the desperate need for us to send more probes to the ice giants (I'm dodging the obvious puns here, I know lot's of you lack my moral fortitude lol)

I know Mars is like, just 'over there' but Voyager 2 is literally the only space probe to have gone near either of them and I given how frequently mini neptune type planets crop up in exoplanet studies, we really need to get a better understanding of these planets.

[Astronomist]

I see Uranus as a faintly blueish grey and neptune as a sort of pale azure, with the colours being more saturated on nights of good transparency or when I am not dark adapted. Interesting how differently people see the colours; I suppose the 'true' colour of something depends on the person observing it.

[Coco]

12 Inch dob shows faint bluish grey, my vixen 90M shows sightly faint pale washed out blue with occasional loss of the blue probably seeing, ive not had perfect obs conditions all year. 😥

[Ags]

I did find the article a bit funny. They were poring over images from deep space probes arguing about how blue is blue and what processing methodology is best, but you can simply point a decent telescope at the two planets and see for yourself. If you read the article and knew nothing else, you would assume the two planets are not visible from Earth.

I can imagine further headlines like "Scientists reprocess 70s images of tomatoes. Definitely pink!"

[Ags]

Scientist reprocesses 1930s newsreel and proves sky is grey.

[Mr Spock]

Latest image of Pluto shows it's redder than previously thought.

[Ags]

11 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Latest image of Pluto shows it's redder than previously thought.

I think that image puts an end to the debate of whether Pluto is a planet. 

[Kon]

I found this very nice work from Christophe Pellier on spectroscopy of the two planets:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/690434-uranus-vs-neptune-through-spectroscopy-color-differences/