Evidence that NASA is altering the true colours of the pictures of Mars

I am kind of surprised that this topic is on here. I had assumed that "everyone" knew that NASA has routinely "adjusted" the color of images taken on Mars. They started doing this after the first few images from the Viking landers showed a blue sky on Mars. The public was disapointed and several commentators remarked that these photos looked as if they could have been taken in any vacant lot on earth. Sooooo....NASA started "color enhancing" the images to bring out more of the reds while muting the greens and blues.

I guess that it still surprises people to know that the "normal" sky color on Mars is blue, not red. The sky is reddish only during dust storms. The CO2 atmosphere has a blue color.

While I'm at it, I might as well burst another bubble. Those brilliant color pics from Hubble? Well, they are airbrushed by an earthbound artist. The deep field cameras on Hubble are all black and white. That's because the objects are very dim and a black and white camera is many times more sensitive to light than a color one. Soooo...the NASA scientists make a guess as to what colors the different shades of grey represent and then they instruct the airbrush artists to color the pics.

No conspiracy here, just theatrics, all done to impress the public and keep the money flowing.

reply to post by lunarminer


You sure about that? Can you provide a link that references to that claim that Hubble and other telescope images that show the blue haze are purposely airbrushed?

Here is a link to the HST Mars Images from Cornell University. No where on those pages does it say anything about the images being airbrushed for blue skies.

Also if you read the article HERE, the images from Hubble are calibrated and combined to make a "natural, full-color view" of Mars.

They are not airbrushing or making false color images here. They are using the same hardware that is used to get all those natural colors of distant galaxies and star systems and nebulas. It can do this because on Hubble, its coverage extends from the UV range through the complete visible range and into the IR range, which means when it takes a visual picture, it takes it in the complete, full visible range spectrum of the human eye sight capability. NASA's specs on Hubble HERE.

So that means those pictures you see of Mars through the Hubble are as real as if you were sitting up there in that thing looking through a huge optical telescope right at the planet.

When it is seen by the naked eye, and through ground based telescopes, it has a "rich" red texture, not the dulled-out red that is abundant in many of the rover images, but funny thing is...those dulled-out red images seem to be the same color curve as the dulled-out red telescope images too. Curious isnt it!



Cheers!!!!

[edit on 17-12-2008 by RFBurns]

Originally posted by RFBurns
From Opportunity, dataset Sol 248 found HERE. A great closeup of a rocky edge hill and a huge rock between the hill and the rover. It almost looks like something crouching down to get out of the way of the shot or worshiping the hill!

Full size HERE.



Cheers!!!!

Nice work RF!

That hill looks like something that could be found right here on Earth! It also looks like something really heavy drove on it (obviously not the case in reality).

These images really capture the imagination!

From Opportunity, dataset Sol 289 found HERE. Very close up view of some large rocks and those tiny marbles scattered on the rock surfaces.



Full size HERE.



Cheers!!!!

[edit on 17-12-2008 by RFBurns]

reply to post by IceColdPro


Thanks IceColdPro! They certianly do capture the imagination! And is our whole purpose, to capture the imagination, the inspiration and wonder about what is out there.

Space belongs to humanity, not just NASA and the scientists. And it doesnt matter what the nth degree decimal point hardliners think or say, space belongs to all of us! And if it can be presented in a color filled manner than the ho hum drum d"RED", well I think our efforts are worthy of the appreciation to those that are captured by the imagination and inspiration sparked by the images.


Lots more to come!

Cheers!!!

From Opportunity, dataset Sol290 found HERE. Another close up view of the large rocks along the upper edge of a hill. And there are those little pebbles running around here too!



Full size HERE.



Cheers!!!!

[edit on 17-12-2008 by RFBurns]

I *think* I got it. I got the colors correct after fixing a bug. But the picture sucks I think I picked the wrong pictures because it's grainy and it seems dark.

I didn't realize there are so many RGB working spaces, which means there are different matrices for transforming from XYZ color space to RGB. NTSC and PAL are two examples. I am using what they are using at Cornell University which also use 2.2 gamma curve.

From Opportunity, dataset Sol 291 found HERE. Another close up view of the rockytop hill with all those little pebbles scattered about.



Full size HERE.



Cheers!!!!

reply to post by Deaf Alien


Hi DA!

Sounds like your making good progress! Can you post the latest example of what its doing?

Cant wait to try it!


Cheers!!!!

Here's the latest


Sucks, doesn't it?

This is why

marsrovers.nasa.gov...

D'OH! Those are sub-frame pictures! I took another look and noticed that!

Originally posted by Deaf Alien
Here's the latest

Sucks, doesn't it?

This is why

marsrovers.nasa.gov...

D'OH! Those are sub-frame pictures! I took another look and noticed that!

It's alright, I can see where the colours could be going wrong. According to the pic though "there be gold" on the surface of Mars hehe

reply to post by Deaf Alien


No I wouldnt say it sucks, its making a picture, just have to fine tune it and test again. I think its great! It will begin to take shape soon, I have full confidence in your ability.



Cheers!!!!

reply to post by IceColdPro


hehehe

I tested another high resolution picture with the sky visible and I'm like whoa. I am not gonna show that in here or men in black will be coming knocking on the door.

I hope the Cornell numbers arent cooked and we just end up making duplicate d"RED"ed stuff like NASA's. It would be nice to find a 2nd source to make sure.



Cheers!!!!

reply to post by RFBurns


Do you have any programming experience? I am using C language. I was hoping that someone might take a look at it and find any bug.

I woke up an hour ago then decided to look at my code and found a bug. At least I got the colors on the sundial correct except for that yellow-orange tab which is a bit off.

I was thinking the same thing about Cornell's numbers. I will just keep working on it.

From Opportunity, dataset Sol 292 found HERE. More of that rockytop hill and pebbles. If one needed pebbles there certianly is no shortage on Mars!



Full size HERE.



Cheers!!!!

reply to post by Deaf Alien


Heh, the last time I dabbled with code was back in the glorious days of BASIC and the mega super high end ultra electroplagmatic cassette drive super duper TRS-80!

It was mostly just a hobby and I was able to make a somewhat decent calculator but byond that I began my endeavors in electronics engineering and mechanical engineering. Soon after that I was heavy into optics and photography.

Wish I could help cuz I definately would be checking on the "established" numbers...like I was saying, I ran those Cornell final images into my Envi program and they came out spectrally identical to NASA"s d"RED"ed image curves, cept Cornell's have a bit more saturation across the curves.



Cheers!!!!

Here is something I found doing a quick serch on RGB spectrum calculations. Maybe it might be of some help?

Page link HERE.

Another source HERE.

A site with a bunch of links that might help HERE.



Cheers!!!!

[edit on 17-12-2008 by RFBurns]

reply to post by RFBurns


The software uses color matching values from CIE. It interpolates the 6 wavelengths using a spline function (supplied by someone else) which is supposed to be a cubic polynomial interpolation function.

It then use this formula to convert to XYZ color space:


then XYZ is converted to RGB by this formula:


ps. No one is gonna comment on my surprise discovery?

reply to post by Deaf Alien


Isnt that the xyz formula from Cornell? Quite different from the formula at the CIE link. Or am I looking at the wrong thing there?


Cheers!!!!