While I agree that the photos are beautiful, I can't help but feel less in awe of them now than I would have a year or two ago, when I first read about how most of these pictures are colorized. The fact is that if you were flying by most of these amazing sights in space or looking at them throught your own powerful telescope, you would not see the same colors as are seen on most space pictures.
Some photos have accompanying text that does mention the fake colors, most that I have seen do not, and I doubt that most of the general population know that the colors are not real.
Why do they use make-believe color? My guess is that they think the real color is too mundane, and that people would be less interested in space if was seen as mostly black and white. To me it's like someone going to Africa, taking pictures of the animals, and then coloring the photos so that the zebras are every color of the rainbow. Hey, anything to keep the funding coming in.
I'm all in favor of space exploration, but I think every relevant photo should be marked "color enhanced" when they are more of a digital painting than an accurate representation of what is really there.
There's an article on the colorizing of Hubble photos here:
http://www.hubblesite.org/sci.d.tech/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/index.shtml
