Where the Perdy Colors gone From Maia?
- Thread starter Wasp0
- Start date
I always wondered why a nebula, illuminated by at least 7 massive blue stars in the cluster, would shine as red, orange and green.
It probably looks red and green if they apply the common elemental detecting filters onto it rather than actually looking at it in optical. Some of the most famous pictures of nebulae are taken in this manner, including the famous "pillars of creation" images, where they map the green channel to the frequencies of hydrogen, the red channel to sulphur and the blue channel to oxygen. Assuming the previous colours of the Pleiades nebula used these filters and mapping, it would mean that the nebula is full of hydrogen and sulphur, but very little oxygen.
It's right there in the patch notes, guys:
And yes, it is more visually accurate. Although, to maximize accuracy, there isn't anything astronomically recognized as "the Pleiades Nebula". There's the Pleiades star cluster, which does have some nebulosity around it, especially around Merope, which is called the "Merope Nebula" (catalogue number NGC 1435). But there isn't actually a separate, discrete nebula near the Pleiades, like you see in ED; the nebulosity you see in pics like the one Askavir posted is simply the background galactic cloudiness being illuminated by the large number of large blue stars in the Pleiades cluster.
And yes, it is more visually accurate. Although, to maximize accuracy, there isn't anything astronomically recognized as "the Pleiades Nebula". There's the Pleiades star cluster, which does have some nebulosity around it, especially around Merope, which is called the "Merope Nebula" (catalogue number NGC 1435). But there isn't actually a separate, discrete nebula near the Pleiades, like you see in ED; the nebulosity you see in pics like the one Askavir posted is simply the background galactic cloudiness being illuminated by the large number of large blue stars in the Pleiades cluster.
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Accuracy aside, I like it more personally.
Thanks Guys. Appreciated
It's a reflection nebula that's finally reflecting the star cluster it's centered around. 
Working as intended.
Working as intended.
I did think this at first, but searching for images of the Pleiades using those filters turned up altogether different colours.
Looking a bit more into it, the old colours of the nebula are what it looks like in infra-red. If you remapped the infra-red part of the spectrum to visible light, with the shortest wavelengths being blue/violet and the longest wavelengths being red, then the nebula looks like that funny green and red blob that we used to have. It basically means that it is mostly quite cold, only able to generate light up to the middle infra-red.
In fact, here's such an image of the Pleiades on the NASA website, spoilered due to size:
Doesn't look that far off what the Pleiades used to look like in-game, all things considered.
Usually in NASA (and JPL) images, they'll list what spectrum is being used and whether they've color enhanced it to make specific features or properties stand out for research.
This is an Infrared picture from NASA/JPL.
I couldn't find one for the Pleiades, but this one will do.
Admittedly, I didn't look very hard