China Just Released True Color HD Photos Of The Moon

originally posted by: OneBigMonkeyToo
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Indeed.

As the owner of that particular archive has said, all he was doing was collecting high resolution images from various places and making a more organised collection from them. It isn't an official NASA archive. All of the photos have been on the web for many many years and in print for decades before that.

Thanks for the correction. When I said "officially" put them all in one place, I suppose I should have said "formally" put them all in one place -- AND it wasn't NASA who did so, but a private individual.

originally posted by: Swills
China Just Released True Color HD Photos Of The Moon

Yes, the Moon does not have the same color as in the Apollo Photos

But as you said, this is "True Color"

planetary.s3.amazonaws.com...

originally posted by: Mianeye
There are no stars

Oh, yes there are

www.space.com...:*

originally posted by: Phage

The shadows point in different directions.

They do not

originally posted by: Swills
a reply to: Mianeye

So I take it you're of the opinion this is all faked?

No its not

originally posted by: awareness10
..No stars multiple shadows facing different directions. Creepy..

The shadows are ok, the stars are there.

planetary.s3.amazonaws.com...

originally posted by: skywatcher44

originally posted by: noonebutme
a reply to: Swills

And you're all wrong. It's made of cheese.

SCIENCE, people.. SCIENCE.,

Well who knows what 4.53 billion year old cheese looks like it could well be gray, solid and dusty..

its not gray

planetary.s3.amazonaws.com...

a reply to: Ove38

I wouldn't trust those Chinese photos to represent the true colour of the lunar surface. There seems to be a definite bias towards yellow / orange in those images. The Moon's surface is indeed mostly grey, with some subtle hues depending on mineral composition.

Colour of the Moon Facebook group.

ATS thread

originally posted by: wildespace
a reply to: Ove38

I wouldn't trust those Chinese photos to represent the true colour of the lunar surface. There seems to be a definite bias towards yellow / orange in those images. The Moon's surface is indeed mostly grey, with some subtle hues depending on mineral composition.

Colour of the Moon Facebook group.

ATS thread

You do not trust China's photos from the surface of the moon ? Why not ? Because the surface is grey and not sand colored in old Apollo photos ? The surface is only "Apollo grey", in China's black and with photos, like this: www.dailygalaxy.com...


planetary.s3.amazonaws.com...

originally posted by: Ove38

originally posted by: wildespace
a reply to: Ove38

I wouldn't trust those Chinese photos to represent the true colour of the lunar surface. There seems to be a definite bias towards yellow / orange in those images. The Moon's surface is indeed mostly grey, with some subtle hues depending on mineral composition.

Colour of the Moon Facebook group.

ATS thread

You do not trust China's photos from the surface of the moon ? Why not ? Because the surface is grey and not sand colored in old Apollo photos ? The surface is only "Apollo grey", in China's black and with photos, like this: www.dailygalaxy.com...

Wildespace is correct. The Moon looks mostly grey but indeed has subtle yellows, browns, and ruddy reds. Photos from the Russians and Japanese indicate this. Those Chinese images seem to be a little bit overstaturated, which may exageraated the subtle colors. However, I think they are only a little oversaturated, because their colors are close to the orbital images from Russia, Japan, and the U.S., and the surface images from the U.S. -- images that show only subtle color.

Don't forget, digital images sensors can only "see" in grey-scale. Digital cameras need color filters and computer algorithms to discern color from the original grey-scale images that they capture, and it seems to me that the algorithms the Chinese are using oversaturate the finished image a little.

But, on the other hand, the Chinese might be intentionally overstaturating to make their images "pop" more and to give them more PR value. There's nothing like cool-looking images that "pop" to help showcase your technological achievements.

And your picture that you posted here:

...is definitely oversaturated, which can easily be determined because, ya know, we can all see the Moon and it is not usually that pronounced ruddy color. Sure, if I look at the Moon through a telescope, I can see some of the subtle colors that do exist, but not to the extent in your image.

a reply to: Box of Rain

Don't forget, digital images sensors can only "see" in grey-scale.

The Chang'e camera is Bayer filtered like any off-the-shelf consumer digital camera. Even so, the colour calibration is not simple due to the different and inconsistent Lunar lighting.

A method and results of color calibration for the Chang’e-3 terrain camera and panoramic camera
www.raa-journal.org...

Gopher holes on the Moon?
www3.telus.net...

originally posted by: GaryN
a reply to: Box of Rain

Don't forget, digital images sensors can only "see" in grey-scale.

The Chang'e camera is Bayer filtered like any off-the-shelf consumer digital camera. Even so, the colour calibration is not simple due to the different and inconsistent Lunar lighting.

A method and results of color calibration for the Chang’e-3 terrain camera and panoramic camera
www.raa-journal.org...

Gopher holes on the Moon?
www3.telus.net...

Correct -- and off-the-shelf consumer cameras can only "see" in grey-scale. That is to say, the light sensors of digital cameras (used by consumers and used by space programs) can only detect different intensities of grey or "black and white" light. Those image sensors cannot on their own discern color.

As you mentioned, consumer cameras, the Chang'e 3 camera, and even NASA's Curiosity's Panoramic camera uses a Bayer filter, which is a red-Green-Blue filter through which the light passes prior to striking the light sensor (the CCD or whatever). The color filter produces differing intensities of black-and-white light, and the computer inside the camera can compare these different grey-scale intensities against each other.

These computer programs and computer algorithms are written based on our knowledge about light intensities and color theory, and the computer them makes a very educated guess (based on this knowledge) as to what color each intensity of grey light seen through each filter should be....And that computer returns a color image.

The digital cameras NASA used in the "Spirit" and "Opportunity" rovers was almost exactly the same, but instead of using the combined Red-Green-Blue Bayer filter, it used separate filters, and then transmitted each separate grey-scale image as seen through each of the separate filters back to earth. The difference being that instead of the computer on board the rover doing the color processing based on the combined Bayer filter information, the separate grey-scales were sent back for color processing here on earth. One reason for this is that there is information in each of the three grey-scale channels (a channel coinciding with each separate filter) that can be useful to science. That data could become lost in an image that has already been color-processed before being transmitted to Earth.