SCI/TECH: What Color Is Mars, Really?

Ok, collated all my posts into this thread:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

In research forum though so created a thread here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Sorry I couldn't make it shorter, I tried my best but there was a lot that needed to be explained that I figured most people wouldn't know.

I upgraded the main explanation thread to an ATSNN story: www.atsnn.com... ATSNN is better optimized for search engines and high traffic than our tired old discussion board. This should help give better awareness to the excellent work of Dr. Kano. [Edited on 18-1-2004 by SkepticOverlord]

Originally posted by darklanser
I tried to get some other color references for the Spirit craft. This is a photo of the balloons taken on Earth. Does it look a bit modified like the images on Mars. It has way too much red. Take a look and decide for yourself.

way too red looking. looks like "mars". a little preconditioning, perhaps?

kano, i don't think you've been getting enough praise, so here's mine....
AMAZING WORK! YOU'RE BRILLIANT. even before true color calibration.

here's a question, though. could that not be arizona, or afghanistan? could they not fake these images. can not the individual channels be doctored before publishing them to the web? i'm not asking you to say they are or were. just to surmise that it's possible. you see, i'm a skeptic.

I couldn't find mention of this:
I notice on the recent jpl/nasa photos, they often include a note similar to the following:
"Data taken from the camera's near-infrared, green and blue filters were combined to create this approximate true color picture..."
So they imply that the image mayb include data from the non-visible spectrum and that the color is not supposed to be "exact."

Please read the Pancam Investigation.

On page 74 you can read the "MER Requirements Relevant to Pancam Calibration and Testing".

Line one:

Acquire at least one RGB and at least one stereo 360摥杲敥 panoramic image of each landing site with
the Pancam. Image one exposed rock that is also analyzed by another instrument.

This sounds like they should be creating an RGB color Panorama for each lander.

On page 53

One of these per rover, in RGB color (L2: 753 nm, L5: 535 nm, and L6: 483 nm)
and stereo (R2: 754 nm), is called for by the formal MER Level 1 Mission Success requirements
(Table 2).

This implies the source will be L2 L5 L6 for the composite RGB image, as it has been shown to be with all the Panoramic images so far.

Continue reading at the very last pages of the report. Look at the test color images. They used L4 L5 L6 for testing and created great color pictures.

Originally posted by MJ
By the in-photo color chart reference, brown should be green and pink should be light blue. HMMM Blue sky and green-blue soil (algae components). So, the retracted ballon drag marks scraped away a thin layer of dry crust to reveal moisture content. Appearance of dragging your boot across earth ground showing muddy scrape look.
btw, Ive not seen nor ever known of any dumb questions anyplace. Just considered additional thoughts to either eliminate or develop further questions seeking a closer result to the answer.
from Majestic (MJ) come discuss this and more on my chat server www.alienx.net...

[Edited on 14-1-2004 by MJ]

PROOF ENOUGH I WAS RIGHT. I dont accept disinformation specialists with technical crap beyond what is needed. I am college educated myself. I am satisfied with the correct as possible photos shown at the below website and they are not red sky either.
And, they are blue green rocks and pebbles. My thoughs of algae might have been incorrect but not the colors back when we were getting purposefull OR mismatched software hardware sync. This has been corrected very close to true color NOW.
As for the objects obvious to any one with any ethics, they certainly are not rocks they are scrap junk from machinery Wake up and smell the coffee. Some people on forums are misinformation specialists. Its that simple.
As for my chat server I had too many cult nuts and mis information overt heretics dirrupting sincere scientists' discussions to continue.
See real near true color photos very close to the color chart on the lander at the website below.
www.keithlaney.com... LAND PHOTOS
www.enterprisemission.com... MACHINERY
www.gizadeathstar.com... A REAL EYE OPENER

Originally posted by MJ
technical crap beyond what is needed. I am college educated myself.

Does this really warrant a response? They sure dont make 'college educated' like they used to.

One very important aspect of this 'technical crap' is overlooked by Keith. The rovers automatically equalize and amplify all channels to maximise the SNR in the return transmissions. Hence if we just mix all the channels as they come in, its an equalized image. Equalized images are not true color, and quite often equalizing the color channels can through the colors completely out of whack. All of this is covered Here.

But hey, as 'college educated' you'd know technical details are irrelevant right?

Its also disappointing keith has neglected to put any way of contacting him on his site (as far as I can see). So there is no way to let him in on our little secret.

quote: "The rovers automatically equalize and amplify all channels to maximise the SNR in the return transmissions. Hence ..... "
There u go some more with signal to noise ratio (SNR) etc.

The photos have been corrected. The obvious corrected problem in relation to my original posted statement in reference to the color chart, now speaks for me.

There u go some more with signal to noise ratio (SNR) etc.

You act like this is irrelevant, do you have any understanding of the meaning of this?

The photos have been corrected. The obvious corrected problem in relation to my original posted statement in reference to the color chart, now speaks for me.

No offence, but the only thing speaking for you at the moment is ignorance, and its speaking quite loudly indeed. I suggest you read the link in my above post and understand the concepts covered within. They are explained quite simply.

KANO! NO offense? Oh that is all u intend is offense! If this is all there is to you then obviously you are one very insecure individual. If some one can not post here making a simple explanation that later proves itself and proves the one posting it as correct in the first place then this forum is not worth my time.

Just total aggravation from you Kano, who thinks they are the only one with the answers. Technical jargon unneeded to a general audience. Mis quotes of my topic taken out of context etc.

It does not require a doctorate degree as any one with a jr hi school education could have seen and pointed out as easily as I have and made it as simple as I put it. Even you should have been able to understood my easy explaination.

Do I understand ? Am I ignorant?
I have a BSC in Data Telecom (5 year degree) equivalent to a Master degree. and a FCC GROL License . So, No I am not ignorant. I understand perfectly all your elaborate descriptions.

You need to understand that most people who read this forum do not have our understanding. That is why I stated my original post in the simplest way possible to cover a general audience. That is why I refered to this as technical crap, to put at ease those who dont need it and dont understand such technical explanations. I have no need to show off my abilities and tech expertise. Im quite secure and at ease with giving simple explanations to simple observable maladys and have done so and proven how easy it was.

Now you will need to find some other person to try and make yourself look good because I now refuse to respond to such a person as you any further. Anyone reading this, except you, can see I was just expressing my opinion on what the near true colors should be. And, disinformation specialist abound on such forums as this. Further that extraneous engineering information (technical crap) was not needed for such a simple observable analysis.

You Kano were not the only one posting with in depth technical information. All of which was others opinion the same as was my own posts. Personally I enjoyed reading the technical info, which was aside from the point to a general audience of readers I was reaching toward.

YOU, Kano,at first response made this personal. I didnt. You are not worth my time or further energy in this matter. As the saying goes, I may not know who you are, but I know WHAT you are.

Thank you Archangel for your bringing this malady to our attention in the first place. You have done a great service in doing so and possibly are one of the main reasons we now have near accurate color.




[Edited on 11-2-2004 by MJ]

[Edited on 11-2-2004 by MJ]

I see, so with your degree, you are obviously very familiar with SNR and its importance to communications in general. Why would you post as if to make it seem irrelevant?

Surely someone as educated as yourself would be able to clearly see the mistake made by Keith Laney in not taking into account this aspect of the signal chain?

One only needs experience in Photoshop to understand the issues, not deep technical experience. Just take any RGB image, and equalize each of the Red, Green, and Blue channels. You'll see that equalizing these channels will result in an image that is no longer true color. This combined with the UV filters causes the variance we see. And such is the result when you develop photographic systems where you're more concerned with the detail, tone, contrast, and clarity, than you are in hue, saturation and color. Damn scientists.

Is there any technology for imaging whereby all this is circumvented?

Can someone tell me how come Nasa now sees a dusty Blue sky and how does that tie into the the instruments and this thread? What is the Color of Mars Really?????

Rover Captures Dusty Sunset in Blue Martian Sky; Picture Gives Information on Mars Atmosphere
ap.tbo.com...
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - The Opportunity rover turned its panoramic gaze on the horizon and captured a dusty blue sunset.

A bluish tint and rapid dimming of the sun at the horizon were caused by dust scattering the sunlight, just as smog might do on Earth.

"Those of you who live in Los Angeles are very familiar with this effect," Bell said. "What's happening is the sun is sort of setting into the murky, dusty atmosphere of Mars."

The sun always has a blue region around it on Mars, covered here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

No need to try and re-processing color images to get the "correct" color. NASA/JPL provides the raw data(monocromatic images taken with different color filters) on their web site (marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...) and you can try your hand at combining them to produce color images. It's not easy! The bandpass frequency of each image filter is provied (taken with the left pancam lens). You can start with combinations of filters 4-5-6 for RGB composits, then take in to consideration the wavelenghts of the monitor you view them on, balanced by human sensitivity to colors, etc, and then try to get a "natural" image. It's not easy, but it doesn't seem to be a cover up.

First of all, I'm sorry of my poor spelling and grammar skills, but I'm not an English speeker.

Now, I'm not a conspiracy beliver, in fact I'm quite satisfied with the Nasa's pictures, but if we were to be correct all the way up, then listen to what I have to say.

Kano, you almost convinced me with your thred, but still, something bothers me. Are you sure that the L4 filter is realy RED? As far as I know, 600nm is realy ORANGE; take a look on the image from Howstuffworks you used.
More, isn't JPL's logo RED? Then why in this picture:


it apears nearly blak??
I could only replicate it using the 3 filters you meantioned L4, L5 and L6, but using the L3, L5 and L6 images you will obtain a RED JPL logo.
As I can see from
marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...
the L3 filter has a 673nm wavelength wich is RED (check again the picture from Howstuffworks).
Here is an additional link where you can see that 600nm wavelength means ORANGE, not RED and that in fact 673nm means RED:
hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...
And another thing: the RED-chip from the color calibration target looks pretty dark in all that true color images obtain with L456 filters and I guess that this is because L4 filter is not RED but Orange. You can notice in the "Spectra of the color chip pigments" pictures (that again you posted) that the red chip has less refflectance(?? sorry, but how do you spell that??? ) at 600nm than at 673nm. And I think that's normal since RED is not ORANGE !!
Another example:


I manage to obtain the same result from the raw files using the L456 combination. But something's way wrong!!! The US flag with almost no RED in it?? How is this possible??
What do you think about all this??

Firstly, welcome Apass to ATS, and thankyou for pointing that out. The L3 does work for Red just as well as the L4, arguably better for some isntances. Also the L6 is replaceable by the L7 for the Blue channel. There was actually a few L357 images sent back by Spirit at one stage if I remember correctly. It was around the time Spirit found that crumbly rock on its trek to Bonneville.

The reason I was working with L456 is because they are the closest approximation in the filter set that match the peak absorbancy wavelengths in the human eye. Approx 445nm, 535nm, and 570nm. It is hard to judge from the pigments on the paints as they all have specific reflectance curves. Just another problem with trying to recreate something 'as the eye sees it' with bandpass filters.

ok... now I believe that the government does indeed hide many many things...but what would be the purpose of hidding green colors! Would grass found on mars not be an amazing discovery! what would be the point in hiding it from the public?

*Sorry if I ask really stupid questions*

I didn't expected a post so soon...
I understand your criterion on choosing L4 over L3 but still I don't agree!!

RED is NOT ORANGE!!!!

Just google (or any other search engine you prefer) "Orange ligth wavelength" and I hope you'll understand my point.

I'm pretty sure you'll get around 600nm (I've got from 590nm to 620nm).
I too understood that the human eye is more sensitive to a red-orange ligth than red and I'm not going to argue about that. But isn't 600nm more ORANGE-YELLOW ligth since is closer to the 590nm bound? Or with a set of ORANGE, green and blue filters you won't get a true color picture. Further more, I've seen the pictures taken with your digital camera and they looked pretty natural to me. And as I can remember you said that the camera has a set of RED, green and blue filters (though it could also be a Cyan Magenta and Yellow set).

It's well known that for constructing color images you need a combination of the basic colors (the cyan-magenta-yellow system can be easily reduced to the RGB system since cyan can be constructed from green-blue, magenta from red-blue and yellow from green-red)
The whole ideea in what I'm trying to say here is that you CAN'T use a set of ORANGE green and blue images to recreate a some how true color looking (for the human eye) picture!

And another thing, about the last picture I posted. If you'll get the raw images from Nasa:

marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov... the L4 - ORANGE image
marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov... the L5 - green image
marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov... the L6 - blue image

and recombine them without any change you will come up to the same picture I already posted it. Does this means that, after all, the hardware processing prior transmison isn't altering that much the information??

As a conclusion, if you'll take any set of L3 L5 and L6 images and recombine them you'll see that the blue chip is actualy magenta ( or violet??, I don't know exactly how to translate "mov" from romanian into english). If we take a look again at the chip spectra picture



we'll find something interesting: The Blue chip has a LOT of reflectance in the RED (visible) domain. In fact, in RED ligth (yes, filter L3) has about the same color as the red chip! And also the same refflectance as for the L6 and L7 filters. (Looking again at the picture I found that either the red dot is over the blue dot at 673nm (red) or they simply forgot it).
As I was saying, this means that to the human eye (and even to your digital camera) the BLUE chip, in Earth-like sunligth appears more MAGENTA than in the picture above!

What will it look like in a Mars-like sunligth?? If they say that the dust in Mars atmosfere filters the blue ligth, then certainly it won't be bluer than back here, on Earth!!

My guess is that we won't be able to say how Mars looks like till somebody goes there and sees it with his EYES!!!

[Edited on 17-4-2004 by Apass]

[Edited on 17-4-2004 by Apass]