Why Deep Space Photos Can't Be Color Calibrated
Color calibration in deep space astrophotography is a major challenge. Human eyes and cameras perceive color differently. Camera sensors' sensitivity to infrared light and their varying responses to different elemental emission spectra lead to final image colors drastically different from what the human eye sees. For example, the H-alpha emission line of hydrogen atoms is hard for the human eye to detect, but cameras are very sensitive to it, resulting in nebulae appearing in colors unlike human observation. Even color correction can't perfectly reproduce the colors seen by the human eye because the lighting environment in space is completely different from that on Earth; there's no uniform light source or brightness. Ultimately, the author suggests keeping the camera's original colors and setting the white balance based on an average spiral galaxy.