What color is the moon?

My camera has a choice of "white balance" settings. If I use "Sunlight"
on the assumption that the moon is a sunlight landscape, photos of the
moon come out looking a little brownish. If I use "Auto", the moon
appears nearly colorless. The former coloration is not implausible,
but which is closer to the truth?

Fortunately, I can make this decision retroactively for photos shot
in RAW mode.

--
"Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS
crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in
TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in
bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither."

On 21/09/2012 08:39, Paul Ciszek wrote:
My camera has a choice of "white balance" settings. If I use "Sunlight"
on the assumption that the moon is a sunlight landscape, photos of the
moon come out looking a little brownish. If I use "Auto", the moon
appears nearly colorless. The former coloration is not implausible,
but which is closer to the truth?

Fortunately, I can make this decision retroactively for photos shot
in RAW mode.

Probably somewhere in between the two roughly speaking the colour of
freshly cleaved basalt for the darkest of the light bits.

If you really wind up the colour contrast/saturation in HSL space you
can actually see very slight differences in lunar geology.

http://www.mikeoates.org/mas/project...lour/intro.htm

There is a better full colour version somewhere.


--
Regards,
Martin Brown

"Paul Ciszek" wrote in message ...
My camera has a choice of "white balance" settings. If I use "Sunlight"
on the assumption that the moon is a sunlight landscape, photos of the
moon come out looking a little brownish. If I use "Auto", the moon
appears nearly colorless. The former coloration is not implausible,
but which is closer to the truth?

Fortunately, I can make this decision retroactively for photos shot
in RAW mode.

--



Colour is subjective and dependent on surrounding colour, as
this image clearly shows.
http://androcles01.pwp.blueyonder.co...e/illusion.JPG
-- This message is brought to you from the keyboard of
Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway

On Sep 21, 5:21*am, "Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway"
wrote:
"Paul Ciszek" wrote in ...

My camera has a choice of "white balance" settings. *If I use "Sunlight"
on the assumption that the moon is a sunlight landscape, photos of the
moon come out looking a little brownish. *If I use "Auto", the moon
appears nearly colorless. *The former coloration is not implausible,
but which is closer to the truth?

Fortunately, I can make this decision retroactively for photos shot
in RAW mode.

--

Colour is subjective and dependent on surrounding colour, as
this image clearly shows.
* *http://androcles01.pwp.blueyonder.co...e/illusion.JPG

Orange and brown are the same color but with different saturations.

This is a better illusion where blue and yellow are compared:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/290/blue_and...inted_choices/

The phenomenon that leads to the illusion is called lateral
inhibition. Rods and cones that receive, for example, green light
send signals to adjoining rods and cones to respond less strongly to
green light. This tends to increase perceived contrast and enhances
the ability to distinguish slightly differing colors.

On 9/21/12 2:39 AM, Paul Ciszek wrote:
My camera has a choice of "white balance" settings. If I use "Sunlight"
on the assumption that the moon is a sunlight landscape, photos of the
moon come out looking a little brownish. If I use "Auto", the moon
appears nearly colorless. The former coloration is not implausible,
but which is closer to the truth?

Fortunately, I can make this decision retroactively for photos shot
in RAW mode.


http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2011/05/tr...-the-moon.html

Also here is an interesting article:
http://www.colormoon.pt.to

On 21 Sep., 09:39, (Paul Ciszek) wrote:
My camera has a choice of "white balance" settings. *If I use "Sunlight"
on the assumption that the moon is a sunlight landscape, photos of the
moon come out looking a little brownish. *If I use "Auto", the moon
appears nearly colorless. *The former coloration is not implausible,
but which is closer to the truth?

Fortunately, I can make this decision retroactively for photos shot
in RAW mode.

I hope I can be forgiven for going ever so slightly off topic:

I was shocked when I took Venus transit images with a new Canon Ixus
digital compact when the Sun came out as brown as hens eggs!

My relatively ancient Sony makes the Sun pink. In both cases I used
the same old, Baader foil, full aperture filter.

"Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway" wrote in
:

"Paul Ciszek" wrote in message
... My camera has a choice of
"white balance" settings. If I use "Sunlight" on the assumption that
the moon is a sunlight landscape, photos of the moon come out looking
a little brownish. If I use "Auto", the moon appears nearly
colorless. The former coloration is not implausible, but which is
closer to the truth?

Fortunately, I can make this decision retroactively for photos shot
in RAW mode.

The color of Dutch Edammer cheese.
As if you didn't know.....

"Sjouke Burry" s@b wrote in message .10...
"Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway" wrote in
:

"Paul Ciszek" wrote in message
... My camera has a choice of
"white balance" settings. If I use "Sunlight" on the assumption that
the moon is a sunlight landscape, photos of the moon come out looking
a little brownish. If I use "Auto", the moon appears nearly
colorless. The former coloration is not implausible, but which is
closer to the truth?

Fortunately, I can make this decision retroactively for photos shot
in RAW mode.

The color of Dutch Edammer cheese.
As if you didn't know.....


==========================================
Jerk Berry, there is NOTHING in the above that is attributable to me.
Why have you addressed me in your inane and pointless remark?
As if you knew anything...

-- This message is brought to you from the keyboard of
Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway

On Sep 21, 12:39*am, (Paul Ciszek) wrote:
My camera has a choice of "white balance" settings. *If I use "Sunlight"
on the assumption that the moon is a sunlight landscape, photos of the
moon come out looking a little brownish. *If I use "Auto", the moon
appears nearly colorless. *The former coloration is not implausible,
but which is closer to the truth?

Fortunately, I can make this decision retroactively for photos shot
in RAW mode.

--
"Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS
crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in
TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in
bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither."

How exactly did our naked and physically dark moon become so unusually
monochromatic, reflective and inert?

The moon is not actually monochromatic nor inert:
Moon’s natural surface colors are those of all the perfectly natural
minerals as they unavoidably react to the visible and UV spectrum, as
only better viewed with having their natural color/hue saturation
cranked up, as otherwise there’s no false or artificial colors added.
http://spaceweather.com/submissions/...1346444660.jpg
http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod200...4dnmol44vuaf43

Oddly the NASA/Apollo era and their rad-hard Kodak version of our
physically dark and paramagnetic moon is apparently the one and only
off-world location that becomes more inert as well as more reflective
and monochromatic by the closer you get to it, and any planet other
than Earth simply can’t be recorded within the same FOV as having the
horizon of that naked moon (regardless of the FOV direction or use of
any given lens, as well as not even possible when using the world’s
best film and optics along with a polarized optical filter to reduce
the local surface glare doesn’t seem to help).

http://groups.google.com/groups/search
http://translate.google.com/#
Brad Guth,Brad_Guth,Brad.Guth,BradGuth,BG,Guth Usenet/”Guth Venus”

On Sep 21, 9:18*am, Sam Wormley wrote:
On 9/21/12 2:39 AM, Paul Ciszek wrote:

My camera has a choice of "white balance" settings. *If I use "Sunlight"
on the assumption that the moon is a sunlight landscape, photos of the
moon come out looking a little brownish. *If I use "Auto", the moon
appears nearly colorless. *The former coloration is not implausible,
but which is closer to the truth?

Fortunately, I can make this decision retroactively for photos shot
in RAW mode.

* *http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2011/05/tr...-the-moon.html

* *Also here is an interesting article:
* * *http://www.colormoon.pt.to

And yet your NASA/Apollo era found only a mostly monochromatic and
inert moon that on average seemed to reflect at 64%.