Moon Size Anomaly in Cassini's Photograph of Earth

Maybe this photo was snapped during the Supermoon.
That explains it.

Sigh. Read this quote from the NASA

Both Earth and the moon have been increased in brightness for easy visibility; in addition, brightness of the moon has been increased relative to the Earth, and the brightness of the E ring has been increased as well.

Emphasize
'in addition, brightness of the moon has been increased relative to the Earth'
Meaning they literally made the moon appear larger relative to Earth, which is a pretty arbitrary manipulation.

Perhaps they were compelled to do it because the Moon appeared to be too small as mentioned. I don't think people would find anything wrong with that but if the Cassini picture team thought the Moon should look prettier than a mere dot, they should've gotten the scale right.

Originally posted by IamAbeliever
Maybe this photo was snapped during the Supermoon.

That explains it.

haha, I know, right? I think you read my tweet!

Just be glad they didn't add pink to the picture.
Someone at NASA has a thing for the color pink.


Mike

reply to post by mikegrouchy


Looks like more blue than pink

There will be a reason for it maybe YOU just can't understand why

A little info from NASA on the photo...

Cassini's cameras have 63 different exposure settings, from 5 milliseconds to 20 minutes. Scientists planning an observation must choose the exposure for each image taken. That can be tough if you're taking a picture of something you've never seen before. Thus, incomplete information on how bright something can be can lead to an underexposed or overexposed image.

Images can be overexposed on purpose too. If the scientist is looking for something dim next to something bright, the bright thing may be overexposed. Finally, Optical Navigation personnel use images to see where Cassini is relative to Saturn and its moons. Often they overexpose images because they need to see where these moons are in relation to the stars in the background sky.

saturn.jpl.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by mikegrouchy

Just be glad they didn't add pink to the picture.
Someone at NASA has a thing for the color pink.

Mike

They didn't add pink arbitrarily. The pink (or more precisely red) comes from ionised Hydrogen in emission nebulae. There are plenty of such nebulae in our own Milky Way, so it's no big surprise that the Hubble sees them in other galaxies too. en.wikipedia.org...

The colour in such images isn't NASA's fancy, it's the actual colour that reaches the photographic sensor. hubblesite.org...