Are the Hubble Space Telescope photos real? If a person was close enough, would the images be the same seen with the naked eye?
1 Answer
They are real and no, the naked eye would not see them as such.
Explanation:
The Hubble telescope uses the entire light spectrum to "see" stars, dust, and everything else.
The chart above shows the entire light spectrum. The small colorful portion in the middle is all the light the human eye can see. Conversely, the Hubble telescope can detect the entire spectrum.
Each element on the periodic table gives off light at a particular portion of the light spectrum. That is, it has a particular frequency associated with it.
The deep space Hubble photographs you see are colorized to represent the elements the Hubble sees.
