Visible color difference between M35 and NGC 5128?

[Scott Harrington]

Friday night was dark (21.55mpsas) and I was observing M35 and NGC 2158 with binoculars and two telescopes. I noticed that in my 10-inch SCT at 135x (44' TFoV, achieved using a 21E), I could detect color in NGC 2158. It seemed light brown, or tan-colored. Normally I would chalk that up to simply being a contrast difference between the blue-white stars that dominate M35, but there might be some truth to it since NGC 2158 is older and undergoing over a magnitude of extinction due to being over 12,000 light-years farther. Plus, NGC 2158 is bright enough to be visible in my 7x35 binoculars, so it's not impossible that it's activating my rods.

Has anyone else noticed this? I'm no expert on eyepieces with 'color correction', but would assume that the 21mm Ethos is pretty neutral...

Image by Elmiko on AstroBin (https://app.astrobin.com/i/ih7zeg?r=0)

Scott H.

[Mel Bartels]

I see hues all the time. For example, the Merope Nebula looks dusty tan to me.

Mel

[Howard Banich]

Hey Scott,

Yes, I've noticed a dusky hue to 2158 a few times in 28 and 30-inch scopes - it really does contrast with the stars of M35. I haven't noticed a blue-ish tint to M35 though, although a few stars are noticeably orange-red.

Howard

On Sun, Mar 23, 2025 at 8:11 PM Mel Bartels <melvin...@gmail.com> wrote:

I see hues all the time. For example, the Merope Nebula looks dusty tan to me.

Mel

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[Zane Landers]

I see a yellowish color to 2158 in my 14.7" and have in larger scopes as well, very subtle though

[Scott Harrington]

Thanks for your responses Mel, Howard, and especially Zane. I think that's good enough to let me know that I was truly picking up on something since the cluster certainly wasn't gray. I'll probably end up using Howard's term "dusky hue" when I describe it in my write-up.

Scott H.

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[Zane Landers]

I looked again Monday night with my 13.1" coulter, 2158 was definitely dusky, my girlfriend said so as well

[Scott Harrington]

Thank you so much for sharing that observation, Zane! It's exciting to get confirmation of something I had never heard of (color in NGC 2158) and wasn't even looking for!!

Scott H.

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