Hello,

I've a person on my own discussion board who claims that there's a conspiracy behind NASA because all planetary raw images appear black n' white.

What should I say?

All? For all time? That's sounds like nonsense.

On many probes, the way they get "color" is by imaging the scene though individual color filters (sort of like blue, red, green, but a little more than that) onto a CCD camera, which is in effect, a "black and white" camera (a pixel is either lit up or not). They then combine those three images to obtain a "color" image. The individual raw images are in effect black and white (actually black and blue, black and green, etc).

Here is NASA's explanation of the PanCam from the Mars Rovers.

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One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
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If they are raw images, then why the "expectation" that they should be in color?

That isn't "what you should say"...I'm just curious as to the reasoning involved.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Oh, I forgot to add...

This person claims that NASA hides the real sky colour of the Moon and Mars - there is a blue sky, green terrain, actually -it's a perfect world to go on holiday.

Well, tell them I would love to see the holiday pictures with the kids when they go visit.

Uh, if the terrain of the Moon was green, wouldn't we see that from Earth? Last I checked, either naked eye, or through a telescope, the moon was basically the same color as it is in Apollo surface photos.

And if it had a blue sky, that would mean it would have an atmosphere, and again, that would be easily seen from Earth.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Green moon? How does he/she account for it's color to the naked eye?
ETA: Darn, you're too fast Swift. I guess that makes sense though . . .

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

Oh, and here's [another] website explaining the process, complete with photos.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

We see the green Moon as black and white because we're looking with our eyes, which gives us a raw image. If our brains had software to put it in a RGB-filter thingie, we'd see that the Moon is actually green. ;D

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If that were true, China, India, Japan and Russia would all have to be in on it too, because their Moon photographs don't show a blue sky or green terrain either.

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"One does not require alien ruins in order to absorb a profound sense of wonder and mystery from the moon. That our civilization had actually visited it is miracle enough." Jason Roberts

Good old analog film cameras are too.

No film records "true color." Overly simplified, the film emulsion has three "black and white" layers which record as R, G, and B.

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Ach, mein Sinn, wo willst du endlich hin, wo soll ich mich erquicken? Bleib' ich hier, oder wünsch' ich mir Berg und Hügel auf den Rücken?
Bei der Welt ist gar kein Rat, und im Herzen steh'n die Schmerzen meiner Missetat, weil der Knecht den Herrn verleugnet hat.

Color is in the eye of the beholder. I took an entire semester of Color Theory in college and studied many different color systems. What I learned is that color is a theory and not an exact science.

What's stopping him? Tell 'm to go and send a postcard.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

How does he know what it's 'realy' like if all the pictures are black and white?

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One possibility is that the voices in his head that are really aliens/angels/ghosts/other trustworthy sources of extraterrestrial information and not and not a sign of him needing his medication adjusted told him so.

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"Any Sufficiently Analyzed Magic is Indistinguishable from SCIENCE!" -Agatha Heterodyne

"Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those who don't understand it." -Florence Ambrose

green moon's.yellow clover's,pink skies....Tell him he's got the lucky charm's
My mistake that lil wee fella has em

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it shows you how much i know....not much i guess----"sohhfly"

The denizens of the Zenotech forum make a big deal about how NASA is hiding something by "manipulating" the colors of the images from the Mars rovers.

tbm

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Paddle faster!! I hear banjo music!!

Places like GLP, they like to point out (OMG!) when images are in "false colour".

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For some reason this thread is reminding me of the great Calvin and Hobbes strip:

http://www.cooperativeindividualism....e-pictures.gif

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"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

I knew exactly which one you were referring to, before even clicking the link. Which is good, considering I was never really a C&H fan.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

I'd say, on all probes. Maybe even the HDTV camera on Kaguya works with three sensors. Never heard of a probe that took color pictures with sensors like you and me have in our digicams. The scientific gain - and the image resolution - is much better when taking pics through filters of well-defined bandwidths

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"Flying in space is risky business, but just staying on this planet is risky business too." - John Young, astronaut

The closest might be the colour photos returned (literally) by some of the Zond probes.

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Well, maybe we can get to the bottom of this. Ask this person how many tabs of acid he has done in his life. More than 12 and the federal government considers you to be legally insane.

Seriously though, explain that the color images are produced by shooting scene through various colored filters. Here is why this is done. First, color CCD video cameras sensors, like the one you use to video your kid's birthday party, consist of alternating rows of pixels covered by miniature red, green, and blue filters. Its kinda similar to looking really closely at the screen on your color TV set and seeing that the color picture really is made up of rows of red, green and blue dots. Now, this method which works fine for general video recording here on Earth, doesn't work so well in space for science.

In space, stars are pinpoint objects. So are the smallest details on moons and planets. Imagine that you are trying to photograph a star which in space and without our atmosphere to make the star a bit blurry, and now imagine that its pinpoint of light only falls onto one single CCD pixel. Well, it the star's light fell onto a CCD pixel which had a tiny red filter over it, then the star would appear to be red. If the light fell onto a pixel with a blue filter over it, then the star would appear to be blue. So, this isn't so good for scientifically measuring the color of very tiny features or pinpoint objects such as stars.

Now, lets imagine combining three adjacent red, green and blue pixels into one larger pixel which doesn't have any filter over it. The result is that this larger pixel is more sensitive to light. Not only that, this larger pixel also has much more dynamic range, meaning that it not only can record very faint light but also can record much brighter light without oversaturating due to too much light. So, this is another reason why scientific CCD sensors are B&W sensors.

The final reason for using B&W CCD sensors is that you can put specific colored filters in front of them in order to make certain emissions more readily visible. For example, you could put specially colored filters in front of the CCD sensor which passes light emitted by sulphur or by ionized oxygen or even infrared heat radiation.

In other words, use a B&W CCD sensor which has bigger pixels for better sensitivity and better dynamic range, and then use filters in front of the entire CCD sensor to specifically search for interesting stuff. That is what scientists do in space, and this is what amateur astronomers do in order to shoot color photographs of planets, galaxies and nebula. Amateur astronomers call this "tri-color astrophotography".

So, there you have it. Point the dude to some amatuer astronomer astrophotography web sites so that he can get an idea of how it is done. Sites like Robert Gendler's web site. Others here will be happy to compose a fairly brief list of web sites for ya.

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Check out my web page of my own processed versions of Apollo mission photos: Apollo ISD Photos

Yep, my raw images off of the Mount Wilson 24 inch scope were all B&W, til I combined them all in CCDSoft. I shot through luminance (clear), red, green and blue filters.

Gotta do your homework before you formulate a NASA conspiracy.

Don't be too quick to dismiss the power of people to not notice the blindingly obvious. I remember a few years ago, while walking through a car park, my dad noticed apparently for the first time in all his 50 year that the Moon could be seen during the day.

i thought the moon was made out of cheese, and was thus yellow in color?
or has the cheese gone bad and turned green?

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
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Naw, it's vacuum sealed, which means you can't leave footprints on it's surface, but does wonders for cheese preservation.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

This is an example of how rarely regular folk look up into the sky. Most just don't do it.

Absolutely right, and here is the proof!

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

that photo is fake.. i see no stars in the background.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

I have heard it said that most people are not aware you can see the Moon in daytime. It would not surprise me.