The Moon Challenge

Last night I took these two photos of the moon from my back deck.



Here is the challenge:

I would like someone to produce an official image of the moon taken by NASA that is of higher quality, more detailed, higher resolution, COLOR image of the moon. I repeat - COLOR image.

It MUST be an OFFICIAL NASA image.

NASA has spent how much imaging the moon?

Can anyone produce a better quality NASA image of the moon than my amateur images taken using a digital camera and zoom lens from a back yard through the thick atmosphere of planet earth?

Is anyone out there up for the challenge?

The link won't work for me.
Any chance you could post the pictures?

reply to post by freedommusic

Does exaggerated color count?

apod.nasa.gov...

Explanation: Earth's Moon is normally seen in subtle shades of grey or yellow. But small color differences have been greatly exaggerated to make this dramatic mosaic image of the Moon's gibbous phase. The familiar Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis) is the blue area right of center. White lines radiate from the crater Tycho at bottom left, while purplish tones mottle the crater Copernicus left of center. Though exaggerated, the different colors are recognized to correspond to real differences in the chemical makeup of the lunar surface - blue hues reveal titanium rich areas while orange and purple colors show regions relatively poor in titanium and iron. Calibrated by rock samples from the Apollo missions, similar multicolor images from spacecraft have been used to explore the Moon's global surface composition.

As that text indicates, NASA is more interested in scientific aspects of the moon, like surface composition.

So the color wavelengths they choose for photography are selected to aid in determining surface composition, as opposed to trying to make pictures that you can make in your back yard.

Great pics buddy !

Nice detail. Just a cam and the zoom on it you say ? lol


as for your challenge their are plenty of exaggerated color photos i don't know about raw ones from earth based telescope




ops pic zoom 400 percent

reply to post by Arbitrageur


This one does not meet the challenge unfortunately - the OP's images are in much higher resolution....

Originally posted by SilentE
The link won't work for me.
Any chance you could post the pictures?

Here's the OPs first photo, the second is about the same.

It would look better cropped, but that's up to the OP, I just resized the image to fit ATS:

Originally posted by windlass34
This one does not meet the challenge unfortunately - the OP's images are in much higher resolution....

How many pixels in the OP pic are nothing but black sky and how many are the moon?

Have you actually downloaded both photos to see how many pixels make up the moon in each one?

Here's the same photo I posted before without resizing to fit the screen, it has quite a few pixels:

apod.nasa.gov...

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Yea, I wanted to post the raw unedited images. I did convert to JPG for quicker download.

Now for example, if I went up in the space shuttle w/ my camera and zoom I am certain I could get a better shot of the moon. This is common sense as I would be beyond earths thick atmosphere.

So surely NASA MUST have a single image of the moon from say the space shuttle, the Hubble telescope, one of the imaging satellites in earths orbit, or a lunar probe as it approaches the moon, etc.

All I am asking is for ONE single NASA image that is COLOR and of better quality than mine.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Is this a colorized image?

Yes it is ...

I took this last week.
Half moon I know but there you go.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Thanks for that.
I'm on my mobile so some links wont work.

Great picture OP!
I've tried taking some with my camera before but they aren't any good. Maybe it's time for a new one.
I would ask what you use but i'm sure the answer would go straight over my head.

reply to post by pazcat


I KNOW that YOU guys will have better pics.

The challenge is specifically an unaltered COLOR, high resolution, photo of the moon by NASA.

Originally posted by freedommusic
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

Is this a colorized image?

It's the exact same image I posted a few posts before that, except I didn't resize it to fit the screen. The caption in the previous post explains how it was made.

Some cool supermoon images from rookies here

www.universetoday.com...




and how about this one ! picture of moon from ISS !

triggerpit.com...


Where is my cookies!

Originally posted by seedofchucky

Where is my cookies!

Sorry no cigar. MUST be NASA and the image of the moon from ISS is lame.

farm5.static.flickr.com...

This is all our earth fairing space exploration can produce?

For anyone who is interested, the equipment I used was a Canon 5D 21 MP digital camera. A 100-400mm zoom lens and a 2x extender.

I understand NASA has better imaging equipment than I do ...

Originally posted by windlass34
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

This one does not meet the challenge unfortunately - the OP's images are in much higher resolution....

If you take the time to look - the OP's images show considerable blurring from atmospheric distortions, as well as imperfections of the telescope.

The overall picture is of higher resolution - but that mostly consists of anything but the moon. When you actually compare shots of the moon - the Official release and the picture are not much different.

www.hiddenloft.com...

- That will satisfy the requirement ... though I can't really say whether or not it's in color... there isn't a whole hell of a lot of color on the moon to tell.

Yes, this is a great image of the moon:

farm6.static.flickr.com...

Sadly NOT from NASA.

- That will satisfy the requirement ... though I can't really say whether or not it's in color... there isn't a whole hell of a lot of color on the moon to tell.

Actually it doesn't satisfy the requirement because the image you posted is colorized.

I would like an unaltered, better quality, COLOR image from NASA.

Is this the best NASA can do?

Does this count?