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

Originally posted by Brainiac
So i take it your point is that Mars is actually covered with Blue Oceans and Green Trees and Grass... With deserts and Blue Clouds...

Not at all. My point is that it has at least some colour. Things aren't ALL the same colour on Mars... Red. The images Nasa are releasing are completely red washed.

RF, could you run the recently leaked "timber" photo through your image editing app and restore the white balance? I don't have the software or 'know how' to do it myself.

You can find the full high res "timber" image here: marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

Notice that it is still possible to see the calibration target and it appears to be red washed but because the photo is in grey scale, it is hard to tell.

Is it possible to recolour grey scale images? What technology was used to make WW1 & WW2 images colour from grey scale?

Thanks for all your input and help mate!

[edit on 12-12-2008 by IceColdPro]

reply to post by makkerskilap

am i the only one seeing something resembling a "insect or bug" in this picture, to the left of the tracks on the right side? it has a shadow, too, thought it looked odd. very interesting subjects and pictures guys!

I saw it. I don't know what it is. Probably just a rock but ya never know lol.

reply to post by IceColdPro

RF, could you run the recently leaked "timber" photo through your image editing app and restore the white balance? I don't have the software or 'know how' to do it myself.

You can find the full high res "timber" image here: marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

That image came from navigation camera which doesn't have color filters. The filters are on Pancam. So it's not possible to color that image accurately except possibly using Pancam images as reference.

I could not find the same area on Pancam (around Sol 115) except for a few pictures with several rocks that look like wood. I could try and color those images but I am still researching on how to do it right, not just combining different filtered RGB images.

Is it possible to recolour grey scale images? What technology was used to make WW1 & WW2 images colour from grey scale?

That is based on the knowledge of what colors the clothes were and obvious things like the colors of sky, clouds, building, rivers, etc.

Never mind. They didn't use the color filters for the area I was talking about. They didn't even bother to use the color filters to photograph the area with 'timber' in question.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Originally posted by Deaf Alien
reply to post by IceColdPro

 

That image came from navigation camera which doesn't have color filters. The filters are on Pancam. So it's not possible to color that image accurately except possibly using Pancam images as reference.

Would it be possible to use the colour swatches on the colour calibration tool on the rover that are visible on the bottom of the image as a reference point for adjusting the image?

Yeah your right about the WWI & WWII images, I guess they did have the correct historical references to adjust the photos. It's quite amazing how they were able to produce coloured photos from that era though heh

www.photosfan.com...

reply to post by IceColdPro

Would it be possible to use the colour swatches on the colour calibration tool on the rover that are visible on the bottom of the image as a reference point for adjusting the image?

How can I? The image is in greyscale. Even with the color calibration tool, we don't have color information on the rest of the image.

Pancam takes pictures of the exact same spot using different filters to be combined later into color pictures using the color calibration tool for correct adjustment.

Sorry to be off topic, but I found this while looking for that timber in Pancam images.

Isn't that reflective? Ice? Something else?

Originally posted by Deaf Alien
Sorry to be off topic, but I found this while looking for that timber in Pancam images.

Isn't that reflective? Ice? Something else?

Interesting image.

Could it be the remnants from the parachute? It does appear to be reflective though and could very well be ice or something like that. Good find.

Originally posted by RFBurns
The surface of the planet is red, that doesnt mean that the sky is red too.

The sky color is a result of the makeup of the elements within it and sunlight reflecting through it, just as it is here on Earth, otherwise, our sky would vary in color over the oceans, the dry land, the tropics, the ice and everything in between.

Thats not the case tho is it.


Cheers!!!!

If you look at some full color higher detailed images of Mars from space, whether from Hubble or space probes, It shows a blue hue and a faint blue halo. Like the 'black' spots like shadows from mountains or crater, they don't show up as black but rather dark and bluish. It's the same as Earth but fainter blue.

So you can assume if you walk on mars, you can see a blue sky.

soooo

IF these photos HAVE been re-touched...
and made to be red to hide a blue sky...


then WHICH of the following TWO conclusions is more plausible? -

A) that mars isn't actually red and dusty when you get down close. .and it's actually quite hospitable atmosphere akin to earths and these photos have been re-touched to make it look red, dusty and inhospitable

B) that mars IS actually red and dusty, but they took photos of barren deserts on Earth, and RETOUCHED the photos to make them look red and dusty, saving billions in dollars.. and faked the entire freaking mars-lander missions.
I mean.. please.. how easy would that be to do..
all the info is given to us over the web or a few tiny TV news spots..

could be easily theatrical.





so....
based on the idea that these photos HAVE been retouched...

which is true..

photos of a live-able mars.. retouched to hide that "fact"??

or photos of EARTH.. retouched to look like mars to save billions of $?

you HAVE to make a decision as to WHICH is more plausible...
earth-like mars? or earth photos retouched.
be unbiased and skeptical here bozos.
WHICH is more likely GIVEN that they're RETOUCHED to look RED.


hell they may have already gone to mars and made a colony by now in black ops joint projects back in the freakin 60s...
why waste millions on a redundant public works project just to appease the comparatively dullard masses?



I repoir,

you decide!@

-

Originally posted by RFBurns
Here is one example. After adjusting the color on an image from the Opportunity rover that had a section of the arm in the image and referencing the white color from the pictures taken of the rover before it left Earth, saving those rgb adjustments, I applied them to one of the images taken by the same rover as it sat near a hill.

The first image is NASA's always this color color image.




Here is the source image link straight from our friends at NASA.

Source


This one is with the saved rgb adjustements applied and the image rotated to stand vertically straight and cropped by about 10 percent to get rid of the edge mis-allignments of their two original pieced together image.






Nice..isnt it.


It doesnt take nuclear science to do a simple white balance adjustment and restore missing green and missing blue to get a close representation of the true color of Mars.




Cheers!!!!

[edit on 11-12-2008 by RFBurns]

AND THAT IS WHY!!!!
look at that rock face
LOOK AT the MOSS!!!
BINGO!
there is moss living all over those rocks

Originally posted by GRANDWORLDDRAMA

AND THAT IS WHY!!!!
look at that rock face
LOOK AT the MOSS!!!
BINGO!
there is moss living all over those rocks

just like a photo you would take on.....

EARTH...

stop yourself for a second and think...

are those photos of "mars" being made to look uninhabitable...

or photos of earth...
being made to look like uninhabitable mars...

-

i am not an expert and i am just giving my opinion , it looks like mars has a blue atmosphere but were has the atmosphere come from to be blue? the sky is blue on the earth because of the majority of the sea on earth.
So, why is mars got a blue atmosphere when they is no sign of blue sea?

reply to post by deathpoet69

i am not an expert and i am just giving my opinion , it looks like mars has a blue atmosphere but were has the atmosphere come from to be blue? the sky is blue on the earth because of the majority of the sea on earth. So, why is mars got a blue atmosphere when they is no sign of blue sea?

Blue sky is due to Rayleigh scattering.

Rayleigh scattering of sunlight in clear atmosphere is the main reason why the sky is blue: Rayleigh and cloud-mediated scattering contribute to diffuse light (direct light being sunrays). Rayleigh scattering is also responsible for the blue color of veins, and is a component of iris color.

en.wikipedia.org...

The image quoted is in fact on Mars. There is a navigation cam picture of the same area that was taken after the rover drove over this area prior to the pancam shot we see above. It can be found by simply searching for the Sol catalog image number and then from there the nav cam shot can be found.

The "moss" can even be seen in the un-adjusted image. It looks like dark spots on the ground.

I too searched for any pancam shots of the "wood" rock being asked about. Didnt find any except some nearby pancam shots that do not have the "wood" rock in them. Curious isnt it.

This is all curious IMO. Tho the primary mission of both Spirit and Opportunity were "geological" missions and the primary filters used were in the IR spectrum so that the geological features were easier to see and analyze, those filters were also "peaked" to allow the objects being looked at through these filters to appear as if they were under "white" light instead of the natural Martian ambient sunlight.

Curious..isnt it! The light we get here on Earth is not "white" light. The sun does not output "white" lite on any planet, including Earth. So why would they want to see stuff on Mars through filters that make stuff appear as if under "white" light?

Curious...isnt it!

Well pure white light has a wider spectrum illumination than even the light we see with here on Earth from the sun. But here is the other curious thing about all this.

IR is in the invisible spectrum. We cannot see in the IR range without filters that bring the IR into our visible spectrum. For example, when you take a typical consumer camera that has "nightshot" capability, it is looking at things in the IR spectrum and uses IR LED lighting to light the night up. What you see on your little viewfinder and the LCD screen and eventually on the video tape is converted IR spectrum into visible information that you can see.

The IR filters on board the Spirit and Opportunity also do this very same thing. Those filters convert to the IR spectrum and then before the information is converted to visible information in the processing of the raw data in each of the IR bands they are using.

Since the rovers never had any nighttime IR illumination, they could not take nighttime IR images, which IMO, would have been far better for analyzing data than using the natural sunlight and artificial filtering to make things appear under "white" light.

But we dont always know what NASA is doing because they dont always tell us everything. As described in Krono's article linked on page 2 of this thread, he points this out. Why would NASA want to tell us certian things?

Thats a question that has been asked about many things with NASA.

I have spent the last 12 hours thinking, wondering and planning. I came up with an idea and began to pour over steps to implement it. It wont be easy. What I am proposing is a formation of an online community that specifically focuses on getting NASA back into inspiring the American public again through their current data sets that are available now, and with future datasets. I know of a couple of people who are very deep into processing these raw datasets and they may help with the idea.

What I have presented on the first few pages of this thread is just a very tiny example. There are vast amounts of images that can be processed using NASA's specifications to adjust these pictures so that they are representing what they should look like through our own eyes and our own visible spectrum.

Now understand everyone, this type of work is NOT meant to replace actual scientific processes or protocols. Nor is any of the images meant to be used for scientific analysis. They are "eye candy". They are images that are adjusted using not only NASA's official specifications and filters, but also using adjustments that bring them further into our normal visible spectrum under normal light conditions..IE: natural sunlight conditions. Even this is a "best guess" because the actual ambient sunlight conditions is still an unknown for Mars. However that does not mean we cannot get a close approximation to that value. We know that Mars gets about half of the sunlight as we do here on Earth in a full daylight, unobstructed case. IE meaning a clear day, no massive dust storm going on, and no major cloud cover.

From those approximations, and using NASA's own RGB filters, and adjusting those out so that they "fill in" to accomodate the missing wavelengths of our visible spectrum, not all but at least some, we can get what you see in that image I processed in the quoted section of the post on this page, and on page 1.

Again, this is not any real science nor is it meant to be. As I told one member last night, if my intentions were to be scientific about all this, I would not be here in ATS, I would be bugging the hell out of some university professor and knocking on the doors of every scientist and flooding their emails at JPL and NASA and at both space centers in Florida and in Houston.

Our intent here is to bring all this data into the "public spectrum", without all the goob garbbly mumbo jumbo they love to throw at us. It is my opinion, that this is the reason why the public has become so dis-interested and why whenever we see something on the news about NASA, a probe took another picture, another rock found, it is always presented from the mindset of a scientific point of view, not from a public point of view.

Who cares if the picture is not .0000000000000000000000000000000000001 percent accurate for public viewing!! We dont need it to be so damned precise!! We dont need to hear all the scientific garbble that boars the hell out of everyone. Not every single person out here in the public is a geologist or a scientist or a number cruncher! We are the general public who pays for these missions and hardware! So why shouldnt we get the sweet eye candy we pay for and let the science stay in the science realm!

Well it may sound like I am ranting here...because I am sort of. But honestly, I keep thinking of those glorious days of Apollo and watching that huge massive Saturn 5 rocket taking off for the Moon. Man..I have to tell you, actually being there, being so young in those years, feeling the raw power from 5 miles away at the observation point, the rumble, the roar, the sheer vibrations from that thing going up and into space and to the Moon, was a roar of American pioneering and American achievement and American pride! It shook the world and had the world's attention! And it inspired many, many young Americans to get into science, space, engineering, mathmatics, geology, and countless other fields. It inspired the young to become pilots, aircraft mechanics, spacecraft engineers and designers, computer engineers and software engineers, my God the list can go on and on and on.

Do we have that kind of inspiration for our youth and for this country and for the world right now from NASA?

NOPE!!!

We need it. The people need it. The country needs it. And so does the world.

I hope many of you here have appreciated what I and others have contributed to this thread. I appreicate the OP who started this thread. I have been asked in u2u to start a specific thread about all this, perhaps. But this thread has already grown into 8+ pages long! I think we could keep it here, but you know, I am not the only one involved here. You are too!! All of you! Thats the thing about this. It is not just for me, or for a few others to put up images or ideas, its for ALL who want to give something to the drive to inspire America and the world.

Now if I can only keep my coffee from getting cold doing all this processing!




Cheers!!!!

Originally posted by deathpoet69
i am not an expert and i am just giving my opinion , it looks like mars has a blue atmosphere but were has the atmosphere come from to be blue? the sky is blue on the earth because of the majority of the sea on earth.
So, why is mars got a blue atmosphere when they is no sign of blue sea?

The sea is not the reason why we have a blue sky. Tho that has been told by just about every elementary school science teacher and book since I can remember.

The sea does cover much of the Earth's surface, about 73 percent of it! But not all of it!

If it was due to surface feature/texture/color that determined what color the sky would be, then over the land areas, the sky would vary in color, from tropical green, to desert brown, to red rocky red, to dark mountain grey, to ocean deep dark blue.



Cheers!!!!

This doesn't prove anything, because you can't get up there and prove it, but even if the skies on mars were a blueish tint, so frikin what. Matters not one bit.

reply to post by rocksarerocks

This doesn't prove anything, because you can't get up there and prove it, but even if the skies on mars were a blueish tint, so frikin what. Matters not one bit.

It shows that NASA is hiding something and we want to know what they are hiding and why.

reply to post by RFBurns


Thank you very much for all the work that you did on this topic.
I have thoroughly enjoyed all the pictures and information that you decided to share with us.
Thank you again.

Originally posted by rocksarerocks
This doesn't prove anything, because you can't get up there and prove it, but even if the skies on mars were a blueish tint, so frikin what. Matters not one bit.

...that's your opinion and you are entitled to it. I disagree and find it astonishing that you are on ATS with that mindset, but that's fine.

RF...

Mate, that was an inspiring post. I agree with pretty much 100% of what you're saying and I do feel the public is kinda left out by NASA (...and they wonder why they have funding problems). Please, this deserves to be an entire thread of it's own!