Imaging close to naked eye sensitivity

[jonbarr87]

Well firstly I am hoping that some of you long time veterans will be able to answer this one for me. As most of us know one of the majour detering factors in astronomy is the fact that so many telescopes brag about their abilities by showing us high end photos. I was just wondering, given how sensitive photographing equipment is, would it be possible to take images that are more on par with the naked eye experience? Both in colour and detail levels? I may be completely crazy. But it COULD be a very useful thing for newcomers as well as promt interest in the science of optics. Like say for example a school teacher wanted to show the expected view various apertures, f-ratios and eyepieces... And like I say I may be completely crazy for even looking into this but you never know until you ask the right people right?

[Paxo]

Are you thinking about prime focus photography or eyepiece illumination?

Steve..

[jonbarr87]

any method. I dont know all that much about optics. So im kind of curious as to if its even posible and theoretically how one would go about it.

[Demonperformer]

Well, I'm no expert, but presumably if you were to take the pictures normally, but just not stretch them as much in Photoshop/GIMP, you would end up with a finished product that only reaches naked eye visibility?

Unless I am missing something really obvious [not an unknown occurrence!] ...

[lukebl]

I suspect that would give the most underwelming impression of what you can see, and put people off for good! The fact is that visual observing takes a lot of practice and things like galaxies only ever look like a faint grey blur except in the largest scopes.