Chuck wrote:
I see colors through the eyepiece differently, depending on which eye is doing the looking. . . . .It's rare that the colors I perceive are what I've read in descriptive texts.
IMHO, some of the inability to perceive colors can be attributed to color illiteracy. Haas's descriptions are often attributed quotes from an 1844 celestial guide by Smyth and a 1917 guide by Webb. Mullaney's descriptions are unattributed quotes that he garned from Pickering, Barnard, Smyth, Flammarion, the Herschels and others. All of these color descriptions come from 19th century or early 20th century authors and pre-date color film. I suspect that those historical times required a basic educated person to be able to mix paints and have a good color vocabulary. In the era of color film, unless you take art classes, a basic school education does require much beyond naming the primary colors. Most people would be hard pressed to name the secondary colors off the top of their head, much less tertiary colors. Now you can just show the thing to someone in a cell phone picture instead of having to describe it. With cell phone camera's, there's no reall need to verbally describe colors beyond your basic red-blooded American male color set of green, camouflage green, brown, camouflage brown, black, flat (camouflage) black, gun metal black and gun metal gray. My own terse descriptions are due in part to my lack of color vocabulary. This reminds me that I bought and stored a color wheel in one of my astronomy gear boxes for use in describing star colors. I'll have to pull that out and start using it. At least I can expand my color vocabulary from the primary colors into tertiary colors modifed by the basic descriptors of tint (add white), tone (add grey) and shade (add black). Clear skies - Kurt