Has NASA's MESSENGER gone color blind?

On Jan 20, 10:33 am, "du" wrote:
"Don Stauffer in Minnesota" wrote in ... On Jan 19, 4:24 pm, BradGuth wrote:

So, where exactly are those true colors of Mercury?
Perhaps MESSENGER's color imaging potential can be fixed while on the
fly, prior to eventually returning for their full orbital mission of
mapping Mercury gets under way.

. - Brad Guth

This was just a flyby. To get as many pictures as you can get, you
wouldn't want to have to screw with all the filters it would take to get
color photos. Color will probably start with the orbital part of the
mission.

There was plenty of flyby time for accommodating at least a few full
color images.
- Brad Guth

On Jan 20, 12:24 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
du wrote:
This was just a flyby. To get as many pictures as you can get, you
wouldn't want to have to screw with all the filters it would take to get
color photos. Color will probably start with the orbital part of the
mission.

I'm pretty sure this fly-by used all the filters.
Exposure time for each photo certainly didn't need to be much given the
level of illumination provided by the Sun.

Pat

I'd have to agree with that. Remember there was two CCD imagers, and
the very best of mirror optics in addition to one of those CCD imagers
having those nifty filters.

I'd like to review the entire archive of all such images from each of
those cameras, and especially of those using whatever narrow bandpass
filters.

- Brad Guth

On Jan 20, 11:28 am, Mark Thornton
wrote:
BradGuth wrote:
"Has NASA's MESSENGER gone color blind?"
Apparently "Mercury's unseen side now seen!" is only available in
those colors of gray. After all this time, and of our hard earned
loot spent, I'm actually rather disappointed in NASA's MESSENGER. Are
we ever going to see the full visible spectrum scope and photographic
color depth and contrast worth of our digital images, or merely as
limited as to whatever gray pixels they see fit to share in B&W and of
such limited DR to boot?

The imagers on space probes are usually designed for scientific purposes
and not generating eye candy.

Colour imaging is good science of the best kind.


This usually means a sensor with a colour
filter wheel. Creating colour images requires post processing which
isn't trivial --- with the probe moving you have to align the images for
each colour. The colour response is also often not well suited to
producing what our eyes would interpret as true colour. I think NASA has
admitted that this last aspect results in poor PR and that future
sensors might include more suitable filters in the set.

Note also that sci.op-research is about Operations Research and nothing
to do with optics.

Mark Thornton

Your naysay mindset is noted.

- Brad Guth

On Jan 20, 12:49 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Mark Thornton wrote:

The imagers on space probes are usually designed for scientific
purposes and not generating eye candy. This usually means a sensor
with a colour filter wheel. Creating colour images requires post
processing which isn't trivial --- with the probe moving you have to
align the images for each colour. The colour response is also often
not well suited to producing what our eyes would interpret as true
colour. I think NASA has admitted that this last aspect results in
poor PR and that future sensors might include more suitable filters in
the set.

In the case of MESSENGER, the photos are across a wide part of the
optical spectrum via several filters.
So they will be putting together color images of the planet from this
data fairly shortly.
The main point of the mission is to determine the elemental make-up of
the surface of Mercury by how the various minerals and rocks reflect
sunlight in various parts of the spectrum, via multiple images of the
same area through all of the optical filters This allows maps to be
generated, such as Clementine generated of the Moon using the same
technique. You can look at the Clementine lunar mineral maps he http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missio...entine/images/


BTW, that Clementine image has the the color pixels excluded from the
moon. Even a 5th grader can prove that image has been doctored.

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missio...entine/images/

- Brad Guth

On Jan 20, 10:25 am, "Vincent D. DeSimone"
wrote:
Are
we ever going to see the full visible spectrum scope and photographic
color depth and contrast worth of our digital images, or merely as
limited as to whatever gray pixels they see fit to share in B&W and of
such limited DR to boot?

Yes, we will. As you know, MESSENGER carries the MDIS camera that uses 11
color filters. What we have been seeing are the B&W images of selected
spectrum shots. The magic of combining them into full color images takes
place on the ground. Since weight and cost is very much an issue with these
Discovery missions, the camera was selected to get the most science out, not
just for eye candy. The last of 500 MB of data was only just downloaded; it
will take a little time for the team to combine the shots into full color,
wide-angle panoramas.

That's good news, as I was getting a little worried that we'd waited
too long and having paid far too much for just those B&W images of
such limited DR.

BTW, composite color spectrum imaging is good science, especially
since the color can always be software (aka PhotoShop) excluded by the
individual viewing the archive of any such color enabled image.
Digital color information does not degrade the observationology
science.
- Brad Guth

On Jan 20, 12:21 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Vincent D. DeSimone wrote:

Yes, we will. As you know, MESSENGER carries the MDIS camera that uses 11
color filters. What we have been seeing are the B&W images of selected
spectrum shots.

The photos we've been seeing are those using the visible red filter on
the spacecraft.

How exactly do you know that?
- Brad Guth

BradGuth wrote:


So, you are going on record as saying that our moon and Mercury are
each of a medium light gray?



That's certainly wrong for the moon. It is dark gray. I've actually
held a couple of hunks of it in my hands, and seen
many others, and they were all dark gray.

Doug McDonald

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 06:20:20 -0800, Gary Edstrom
wrote:

The pictures from Messenger are for scientific purposes, NOT to wow the
public. To get a color picture would require taking separate shots
through each of 3 color filters. That would require extra time during
this EXTREMELY short duration pass of Mercury. When Messenger settles
down into orbit in 2011, they will have more time to gather full color
pictures. Besides, during its closest approach, it was moving so fast
that the 3 separate pictures required for color would probably not have
aligned perfectly. Its time near Mercury was just too valuable to waste
on all those extra pictures who's primary purpose would be for public
consumption.

....The good news: This is 110% dead-on why there was no "true color"
imaging on this flyby.

....The bad news: Too bad it was wasted on the likes of Guthball.

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

In sci.space.history Gary Edstrom wrote:
The pictures from Messenger are for scientific purposes, NOT to wow the
public. To get a color picture would require taking separate shots
through each of 3 color filters. That would require extra time during
this EXTREMELY short duration pass of Mercury.

Then I suppose you will be upset to learn that they used 11 filters:

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/...2&image_id=125

"The WAC is equipped with 11 different narrow-band filters, and this
image was taken in filter 7, which is sensitive to light near the red
end of the visible spectrum (750 nm). This view,
also imaged through the remaining 10 WAC filters,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
is from the first set of images taken following MESSENGER's closest
approach with Mercury."

When Messenger settles down into orbit in 2011, they will have more
time to gather full color pictures.

A lot of things can happen in 3 years.

Besides, during its closest approach, it was moving so fast
that the 3 separate pictures required for color would probably not have
aligned perfectly.

It seems to me that it should be relatively easy to correct that in
software (on Earth).

Its time near Mercury was just too valuable to waste
on all those extra pictures who's primary purpose would be for public
consumption.

Remember that the taxes that pay for the mission are paid by the general
public, of which the planetary scientists are a tiny minority.

There is the saying "No Buck Rogers, no bucks", and there should also
be the saying "No pretty pictures, no bucks".

--
http://www.mat.uc.pt/~rps/

..pt is Portugal| `Whom the gods love die young'-Menander (342-292 BC)
Europe | Villeneuve 50-82, Toivonen 56-86, Senna 60-94

On Jan 21, 6:20 am, Gary Edstrom wrote:
The pictures from Messenger are for scientific purposes, NOT to wow the
public. To get a color picture would require taking separate shots
through each of 3 color filters. That would require extra time during
this EXTREMELY short duration pass of Mercury. When Messenger settles
down into orbit in 2011, they will have more time to gather full color
pictures. Besides, during its closest approach, it was moving so fast
that the 3 separate pictures required for color would probably not have
aligned perfectly. Its time near Mercury was just too valuable to waste
on all those extra pictures who's primary purpose would be for public
consumption.

Gary

Are you you quit through with being anti-science, and otherwise such a
silly born-again rusemaster on behalf of your brown-nosed butt
protecting all that's hocus-pocus NASA.

You know, for some stupid reason your MESSENGER had no problems or
lack of any science whatsoever with all of those full pastel (DR
limited) color images of Earth as it flew past, and there sure as hell
was no shortage of Mercury flyby time for accomplishing a good enough
number of full color and of maximum DR depth worthy images. Three or
four of those full color spectrum images would not have been any loss
to the MESSENGER science, in fact such imaging would only have
improved upon their science.
- Brad Guth