nebulae pictures

[geronimotwo]

i found these pics, very cool.  i had a question though, does anyone here know if  these pics taken with an optical telescope, or renderings made from a radio telescopes output?  



http://local.msn.com/nasa-nebulae

[Devonai]

Most of them are indeed false-color images, with the infrared spectrum rendered in red and green.  Most notably, the Carina and Tarantula Nebulas.

[Tallpine]

Is #15 the Eye of Mordor 

[geronimotwo]

Most of them are indeed false-color images, with the infrared spectrum rendered in red and green.  Most notably, the Carina and Tarantula Nebulas.

that's what they looked like to me.  the way the blurb was titled made me think they would be optical.

[Devonai]

They got me with the false-color manipulation when I was writing my second novel.  I had looked at pictures of the tarantula nebula online and had even picked out the one I wanted on the cover of my book (all NASA photos are in the public domain).  My description of the nebula in the narrative includes those colors.

 

I found out shortly after I published it that the nebula wasn't really that spectacular.  However, true color images of the region are still very pretty.  I decided to keep the descriptions intact and chalk it up to author's fiat.