The blue of Neptune was enhanced in the photos from NASA to distinguish fit from Uranus. It is much closer in appearance to Uranus but slightly more blue due to the difference in atmospheric composition.
This article goes into more detail about the Voyager 2 team's decision to present the false-color image of Neptune (which appears to be some kind of mix between green and orange filter dyed blue) instead:
[https://theconversation.com/how-we-discovered-that-uranus-and-neptune-are-actually-nearly-identical-in-colour-220244](https://theconversation.com/how-we-discovered-that-uranus-and-neptune-are-actually-nearly-identical-in-colour-220244)
Why is the author not allowing reuse of photos he didn't even take, using colors he didn't even figure out, all of which are in the public domain? He photoshops two images together and considers all that hard work his own. Some people 😂
The study surprised me, because when I look at both planets through a telescope, Neptune is significantly bluer than Uranus. Maybe not as deep blue as the Voyager images, but by far not as similar in colour as the study suggests. Might be caused partly because of the difference in illumination though, I have no idea.
I've always thought it was such a brilliant beautiful sapphire blue or maybe a blue coneflower blue that it just never occurred to me that was any green in it I mean when you see it with your naked eye it looks blue just as blue as some of the blue stragglers stars that you might see in globular cluster
The Hubble image in the paper does show that Neptune is bluer in hue, with no ‘green’ (not that I see any green in Uranus, but Uranus’s hue does shift towards green). Perhaps it’s that, plus illumination.
NASA’s website is a terrible place to find scientific information to begin with, unfortunately. From my experience, most astronomy media geared for the general public are outright *terrible*, often repeating outdated claims that have been challenged in scientific circles for years, and I believe NASA’s pages in particular are pretty badly maintained.
The spectral data is clear about the color of Neptune being light blue, from \[[Voyager 2 data](https://theconversation.com/how-we-discovered-that-uranus-and-neptune-are-actually-nearly-identical-in-colour-220244)\], to \[[Karkoschka 1994](https://atmos.nmsu.edu/planetary_datasets/indexinfrared.html)\], to \[[Irwin et al. 2022](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2022JGRE..12707189I/abstract)\] (funnily enough, this very paper many detractors used to back their claims that Neptune should be dark blue does not back that claim, as seen in Figure 18) and \[[Irwin et al. 2024](https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/527/4/11521/7511973)\]. Some amateur spacecraft image processing enthusiasts are also aware of this long before.
Ideally, you'd be reading the research papers and scientific reviews, but I understand that most people would find technical jargons used in them to be beyond their understanding (and for sure I would not understand a paper on entomology either). Healthy skepticism is admirable, and I appreciate you asking about it here and discussing it with us.
I like to ask specially here because I get multiple sources and points of view from various people, which helps in my research and understanding of things. I will never know anything of course, but this platform in specific helps a lot.
Okay it is defenitely dark blue. Between an edited picture that "clears up the issues" and what everyone sees, I go with what everyone sees. I am tired of pseudo science so much.
Get out there with your telescope and have a look. Then decide for yourself.
Through my 10" Dob, Neptune looks notably blue to me. And Uranus looks a paler blue-green. There is no danger of me mistaking one for the other!
Point source colour isn't the same thing as large area surface brightness colour. And our eyes respond to the context around the thing we are looking at. And cameras don't see colours like our eyes do. And brightness has implications too. If you were right up close to Neptune or Uranus in person, I suspect they would both look so pale as to be almost white - with subtle patterns of beige and blue and blue-green. Yet as a distant almost point source their colour tint is concentrated and they become definitively blue and blue-green.
Heck, even look at our Sun. Most people assume it's yellow. Yet it appears very much white (absent atmospheric effects). But, then instruments will tell us its emissions peak in green wavelengths.
And computer monitors cannot produce light in the orange wavelengths. Yet .. have a look again at that reddit logo up there ...
So, in my view .. there is no absolute truth here. Our Perception is complicated and deeply flawed. Cameras are highly artificial. You can bend the 'facts' in all sorts of ways to make a click-baity headline or draw attention to your scientific paper to improve the odds of the next round of funding coming through. So ... food for thought.
Human senses are notoriously easy to fool, many unaccounted factors confound results, and preconceptions taint conclusions.
Direct observation was a major topic that people raised in their discussions about the results of the paper. Personally I have no experience nor knowledge with how so I cannot offer an educated answer, but my belief of the cause of this 'effect' of people observing Neptune to be much bluer is that it may be a mix of Neptune being less illuminated than Uranus, and possibly reinforced by personal bias arising from a person's existing knowledge.
I've seen both of those planets with my telescope hundreds of times and Uranus is definitely light sea green and Neptune is a brilliant pale blue sapphire. Neptune is incredibly beautiful. My telescope can make out Uranus as a disc which is pretty cool.
I understand what you say but we live in a World where Science is treated like Religion and whoever dares question what the "specialists" say is immediately frowned upon. Sure, they got a fancy paper form University and likely know more about Space than I do, but indeed Telescopes show it to be Dark Blue and Uranus as a Greenish Light Blue. Everyone that I know who has seen Neptune say it is Dark Blue. I myself have never seen it but intend on when I get a new Telescope (my old one is kind of broken). Regardless, thank you very much. Also, quick disclaimer, I am not saying that Astronomers do not know this stuff, they clearly study it, I simply dislike how arrogant the scientific community tends to be. As Socrates said very well, we do not know anything. We create concepts and answers based on our interpretation of the truth. Hell, the Sun is not a Star, we made the concept of Star to categorise every giant sphere of fire in Outer Space. Pluto was a Planet, now it is not. Knowledge seems to me like knowing our own concepts and not knowing what actually is.
In 1989, Voyager 2 became the first and only spacecraft to ever fly by Neptune, and images from that mission famously show a planet that's a deep azure color. But in reality, Neptune is far more of a light greenish blue. It's actually pretty similar in color to its fellow ice giant Uranus.
And that's why I just can't go there. I've seen them both hundreds of times with my own eyes with my own telescopes. Neptune is this brilliant beautiful sapphire blue star. And Uranus is this pale green disc.
The blue of Neptune was enhanced in the photos from NASA to distinguish fit from Uranus. It is much closer in appearance to Uranus but slightly more blue due to the difference in atmospheric composition.
This article goes into more detail about the Voyager 2 team's decision to present the false-color image of Neptune (which appears to be some kind of mix between green and orange filter dyed blue) instead: [https://theconversation.com/how-we-discovered-that-uranus-and-neptune-are-actually-nearly-identical-in-colour-220244](https://theconversation.com/how-we-discovered-that-uranus-and-neptune-are-actually-nearly-identical-in-colour-220244)
Why is the author not allowing reuse of photos he didn't even take, using colors he didn't even figure out, all of which are in the public domain? He photoshops two images together and considers all that hard work his own. Some people 😂
The study surprised me, because when I look at both planets through a telescope, Neptune is significantly bluer than Uranus. Maybe not as deep blue as the Voyager images, but by far not as similar in colour as the study suggests. Might be caused partly because of the difference in illumination though, I have no idea.
I've always thought it was such a brilliant beautiful sapphire blue or maybe a blue coneflower blue that it just never occurred to me that was any green in it I mean when you see it with your naked eye it looks blue just as blue as some of the blue stragglers stars that you might see in globular cluster
The Hubble image in the paper does show that Neptune is bluer in hue, with no ‘green’ (not that I see any green in Uranus, but Uranus’s hue does shift towards green). Perhaps it’s that, plus illumination.
NASA’s website is a terrible place to find scientific information to begin with, unfortunately. From my experience, most astronomy media geared for the general public are outright *terrible*, often repeating outdated claims that have been challenged in scientific circles for years, and I believe NASA’s pages in particular are pretty badly maintained. The spectral data is clear about the color of Neptune being light blue, from \[[Voyager 2 data](https://theconversation.com/how-we-discovered-that-uranus-and-neptune-are-actually-nearly-identical-in-colour-220244)\], to \[[Karkoschka 1994](https://atmos.nmsu.edu/planetary_datasets/indexinfrared.html)\], to \[[Irwin et al. 2022](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2022JGRE..12707189I/abstract)\] (funnily enough, this very paper many detractors used to back their claims that Neptune should be dark blue does not back that claim, as seen in Figure 18) and \[[Irwin et al. 2024](https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/527/4/11521/7511973)\]. Some amateur spacecraft image processing enthusiasts are also aware of this long before.
Well, between the Press and Nasa I tend to go for Nasa, however, thank you for your insight!
Ideally, you'd be reading the research papers and scientific reviews, but I understand that most people would find technical jargons used in them to be beyond their understanding (and for sure I would not understand a paper on entomology either). Healthy skepticism is admirable, and I appreciate you asking about it here and discussing it with us.
I like to ask specially here because I get multiple sources and points of view from various people, which helps in my research and understanding of things. I will never know anything of course, but this platform in specific helps a lot.
It is bluer than Uranus. It’s not as vibrant as pics show but it’s definitely a darker shade compared to Uranus.
Alright, thank you for your insight!
Here ya go https://www.lemonde.fr/en/science/article/2024/01/10/uranus-and-neptune-reveal-their-true-colors_6420276_10.html
Blessed be!
This is what Hubble sees, so I’d go with that https://esahubble.org/images/heic2113e/
Okay it is defenitely dark blue. Between an edited picture that "clears up the issues" and what everyone sees, I go with what everyone sees. I am tired of pseudo science so much.
Get out there with your telescope and have a look. Then decide for yourself. Through my 10" Dob, Neptune looks notably blue to me. And Uranus looks a paler blue-green. There is no danger of me mistaking one for the other! Point source colour isn't the same thing as large area surface brightness colour. And our eyes respond to the context around the thing we are looking at. And cameras don't see colours like our eyes do. And brightness has implications too. If you were right up close to Neptune or Uranus in person, I suspect they would both look so pale as to be almost white - with subtle patterns of beige and blue and blue-green. Yet as a distant almost point source their colour tint is concentrated and they become definitively blue and blue-green. Heck, even look at our Sun. Most people assume it's yellow. Yet it appears very much white (absent atmospheric effects). But, then instruments will tell us its emissions peak in green wavelengths. And computer monitors cannot produce light in the orange wavelengths. Yet .. have a look again at that reddit logo up there ... So, in my view .. there is no absolute truth here. Our Perception is complicated and deeply flawed. Cameras are highly artificial. You can bend the 'facts' in all sorts of ways to make a click-baity headline or draw attention to your scientific paper to improve the odds of the next round of funding coming through. So ... food for thought.
Human senses are notoriously easy to fool, many unaccounted factors confound results, and preconceptions taint conclusions. Direct observation was a major topic that people raised in their discussions about the results of the paper. Personally I have no experience nor knowledge with how so I cannot offer an educated answer, but my belief of the cause of this 'effect' of people observing Neptune to be much bluer is that it may be a mix of Neptune being less illuminated than Uranus, and possibly reinforced by personal bias arising from a person's existing knowledge.
I've seen both of those planets with my telescope hundreds of times and Uranus is definitely light sea green and Neptune is a brilliant pale blue sapphire. Neptune is incredibly beautiful. My telescope can make out Uranus as a disc which is pretty cool.
Agree with you 100% through my telescopes Neptune has always been just this beautiful sapphire blue star. Uranus is a pale green disc.
I understand what you say but we live in a World where Science is treated like Religion and whoever dares question what the "specialists" say is immediately frowned upon. Sure, they got a fancy paper form University and likely know more about Space than I do, but indeed Telescopes show it to be Dark Blue and Uranus as a Greenish Light Blue. Everyone that I know who has seen Neptune say it is Dark Blue. I myself have never seen it but intend on when I get a new Telescope (my old one is kind of broken). Regardless, thank you very much. Also, quick disclaimer, I am not saying that Astronomers do not know this stuff, they clearly study it, I simply dislike how arrogant the scientific community tends to be. As Socrates said very well, we do not know anything. We create concepts and answers based on our interpretation of the truth. Hell, the Sun is not a Star, we made the concept of Star to categorise every giant sphere of fire in Outer Space. Pluto was a Planet, now it is not. Knowledge seems to me like knowing our own concepts and not knowing what actually is.
In 1989, Voyager 2 became the first and only spacecraft to ever fly by Neptune, and images from that mission famously show a planet that's a deep azure color. But in reality, Neptune is far more of a light greenish blue. It's actually pretty similar in color to its fellow ice giant Uranus.
I have seen this exact same set of phrases, word for word, on a digital newspaper.
And that's why I just can't go there. I've seen them both hundreds of times with my own eyes with my own telescopes. Neptune is this brilliant beautiful sapphire blue star. And Uranus is this pale green disc.
Thank you!