Every now and then someone posts a photograph of the milkyway galaxy with all its colors and glories during a new moon. It's really frustrating to see most of the top comments calling out that it only looks so pretty because of exposure.
In reality if you manage to get to one of the few places left on earth that are truly dark sky places and you catch it during a new moon, the spectacular lights are really not that far off
Unfortunately the vast majority of internet denizens today have never truly experienced a dark sky during a new moon. An experience that just 200 years ago almost every human has had
In dark sky spots in New Zealand, places where you commonly have photographers producing amazing colourful photos, this[0] is what you usually see with the naked eye.
The brightest I've personally seen the Milky Way was at the Atacama desert and it looked like [1].
> It's really frustrating to see most of the top comments calling out that it only looks so pretty because of exposure.
Why? That's actually true.
I've been to many truly dark sky sites. I get out to one at least once a year on average. I've photographed the Milky Way, galaxies, nebulae, you name it. Under dark skies, the milky way is an amazing site. But don't be mistaken: it's still gray in appearance to the naked eye.
Let's look at this in a few different ways:
1) The pupil of the human eye opens to about 7mm (if you're young) under truly dark skies. That is the limiting aperture that determines how many photons strike the retina. The human visual system is optimized to detect motion. The integration time for the image you see in your brain is maybe 1/30th of a second. When I photograph the Milky Way, I use a 14mm f/1.8 lens (that's a 14mm/1.8=7.8mm aperture) with about a 30 second exposure. Those two factors alone put the camera at a (7.8/7)^2 * 30/(1/30) = 1111x higher exposure level. The camera also has ISO levels for further gain.
2) The human eye has two types of receptors: cones and rods. Cones are used for color vision. Rods are used for low light vision. It takes more photons to stimulate a cone than it does a rod. So when you're looking at faint objects, you might not be able to discern their color. The reason people like me seek out dark skies is because the objects we're trying to see are at the limits of detectability and we'll take whatever advantage we can get. Even when viewing through my 4-inch telescope, most objects appear gray. And that's with a (106/7)^2 = 229x light gathering advantage over the naked eye.
3) Have you ever thought about why it's called the Milky Way? It comes from the name given to it by the ancient Greeks. It appeared to them as a streak of milk in the sky (and they didn't have modern light pollution issues). What color is milk?
You can see the structure of the Milky Way sometimes.
Even satellites and planes look like absurd neon signs out in the country.