timmdeeg said:
In this case the corresponding emission lines should be in the ultraviolet range, not sure which electronic transitions are involved here. Whereas the visible emission spectrum of such galaxies is depending on ##z## shifted to infrared wavelenghts and hence is invisible to us, correct?
The primary Hydrogen Lyman-##\alpha## line is in the UV range, so, yes!
But they appear blue to the eye mostly because the very bright stars are just ridiculously hot, so this is more about basic temperature than anything. And since temperature and redshift have a trivial relationship, the appearance of blue is directly related to that temperature.
A thermal spectrum starts to look blue to the eye at around 7500K or so. Thus, if a galaxy at redshift ##z=0.3## appears blue, then its brightest stars are at least ##7500K \times 1.3 = 9750K##. The hottest stars can have temperatures around 40,000K.
Anyway, to see this effect visually, I recommend taking a look at the Hubble Ultra Deep Field:
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0611b/
Most of the large galaxies (which will also usually be closer galaxies) are between white and orange in color. Note that the spiral galaxies tend to be lighter in color than the elliptical galaxies (spiral galaxies have a lot more star formation, because they have more gas and dust spread throughout). If you look at the tiny galaxies in the background, though, there are quite a few of them that are very blue. Not all, for sure. But many are. And their small appearance isn't because they're physically small, but because they're far away.
You can't know the redshifts of these galaxies from this image, of course, but I think it provides a nice visual picture of the effect.