Why are all Mars pictures in black and white? That doesnt make any sense!

SERIOUSLY! Why are they all in black and white? I mean the pictures are at like 15 megapixel resolution when they are taken, what is so hard about making them colored photography especially if they are taken by digital cameras? Shouldn't they all be colored photographs? with all the money in Nasa you would think so...

Example:

marsrovers.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by blowfishdl
SERIOUSLY! Why are they all in black and white?

Scientists have proven that the atmosphere on Mars doesn't allow color to spread more than a few feet from an object, hence all the photos are in black and white. Do a little research. Geez!

That or its easier to hide the trees around the lakes in black and white.

Originally posted by SuicideVirus

Originally posted by blowfishdl
SERIOUSLY! Why are they all in black and white?

Scientists have proven that the atmosphere on Mars doesn't allow color to spread more than a few feet from an object, hence all the photos are in black and white. Do a little research. Geez!

Does THAT really make any sense either though? Have you taken a look at the Mars microscopic pictures? Shouldn't they have color to them if what you say is true?

They're NOT all in black in white...were you watching TV at ALL during the Sojourner broadcast?

I must've missed that.. got any good links to put on me?

Not all pics of Mars are black and white.

Mars Pics In Color Ats Thread



also, use the search function here at ATS, you'll find many more good pictures in color


[edit on 9-8-2007 by elevatedone]

Those pictures are nice.. I guess :\ but I am NOT SATISFIED!

The color pictures there are still a very very very far distance away. I mean the ROVER doesn't have a color digital camera attached to it??????

OK color mars pics comin' out the yin-yang:

www.space.com...
www.nytimes.com...

And oldie but a moldie from Viking (scroll down for the color but also read the notes)

www.msss.com...

here's a good read on Mars pics..

ATS Mars Pics

There aren't any color cameras. Digital or film.
Color comes to play when we process, or develop images.

This is very simplified, But the links elevatedone supplied above are MUST READS!

For digital. The camera is sampling the amount of luminance for specific wavelengths..When processing we assign a color, for each wavelength.

For Film..The luminance is measure by the sensitivity of microscopic grains of
chemical crystals..silver based chemistry usually..Later a certain color dye is assigned to each layer of exposed crystal.

Most of the images supplied by the Rovers are in "color" so to speak.
They are taken through filters.
Again, if you read the link elevatedone supplied, you'll be able to combine them, and make your own FULL COLOR images.

I think most except for a few of the old ones are not true colour, they use infrared as red for instance and its been shown most have odd filters and alterations even after that fact, strange indeed, why not at least have one simple ccd camera?

Originally posted by blowfishdl

Originally posted by SuicideVirus

Originally posted by blowfishdl
SERIOUSLY! Why are they all in black and white?

Scientists have proven that the atmosphere on Mars doesn't allow color to spread more than a few feet from an object, hence all the photos are in black and white. Do a little research. Geez!

Does THAT really make any sense either though? Have you taken a look at the Mars microscopic pictures? Shouldn't they have color to them if what you say is true?

The microscopic images are of objects that are too small to reflect a complete spectrum of colored light, so they appear in shades of gray. It's all science, man. And all of those "color" pictures you see have color added after the fact. If you were on Mars, it would be like looking at a black and white TV.

Okay so I'm still really not getting this.. call me stupid or call me simple minded but I think it sounds like a complete cover up for hiding imagery.

I realize the Mars atmosphere is alot different than ours. However, even with low light and blah blah blah what would make a colored camera take black and white photos? Would that mean if we went to mars and looked through a microscope we toow ould see in black and white?

reply to post by blowfishdl


No, you are correct. It is a sort of a cover up. The lighting conditions are supposedly alot worse there, so somehow we are stuck with black and white or "false" color images. I really dont understand why they supposedly are not able to produce "true" color images, other than ones that are so heavilty over red and yellow and bright that it hurts my eyes to look at them.

I guess thats how it looks down there or something? Funny thing is, if you look at the images of earth from far away we pretty much look like grey and yellow dirtball with some strips of green here and there but if you change the color scale abit and there were no oceans you would end up with dead looking dirtball. Makes you wonder if Mars really is as dead and dry as we are led to believe?

The rovers' panoramic cameras have 5 different filters each (I think), using the right filters, as in the thread posted by elevatedone, we can create colour images.

The way our digital cameras work is different, they have the sensor divided in red, green and blue sensitive spots, (some with a bigger green sensor to create an image more close to what we see), but that arrangement makes photos with a worse quality than using 3 monochromatic images.

Here, see some Mars photos in colour.

And before anyone asks, yes, that is a blue sky.


I forgot to add that these images were made by me, as spacedoubt said, using the technique of the post pointed to by elevatedone.

[edit on 26/8/2007 by ArMaP]

Thankyou to spacedoubt, elevatedone and ArMap for bringing some sense to this thread. The reason for the odd colors in the pics posted by ArMap is the channels have not been properly balanced. Just all mixed at 100%. The Rovers normalize the data from each image captured (so the darkest pixel is pure black and the lightest pure white) to send the maximum possible data with each image. These levels have to be balanced back out to get a closer approximation of what the human eye would see.

Originally posted by blowfishdl
Okay so I'm still really not getting this.. call me stupid or call me simple minded but I think it sounds like a complete cover up for hiding imagery.

You aren't getting it because you aren't bothering to read any of the links provided to you. Try starting out by going to howstuffworks and finding out how these 'color digital cameras' we have on Earth work. It really is quite a basic concept.

Originally posted by SuicideVirus
The microscopic images are of objects that are too small to reflect a complete spectrum of colored light, so they appear in shades of gray. It's all science, man. And all of those "color" pictures you see have color added after the fact. If you were on Mars, it would be like looking at a black and white TV.

No, no, no!

You aren't allowed to make stuff up claim that it is 'all science man'. This is utter drivel. Please bother to know something about a subject before telling others such ridiculous things.

[edit on 26-8-2007 by Kano]

To the OP --

Take Kano's advice and check ou the "how stuff works" links. The fact that the raw images are black and white has nothing to do with Mars's atmosphere or whatever else you heard. The reason that the RAW photos are black and white is because that is how digital cameras work...ALL digital cameras (even the one you own) are color blind. The colors you see are approximations based on color filter and the intensity of the light. The camera's computer reads these different intensities of light caused by the filtering and makes an educated guesss as to what the color should be. The colors are never "actual", but what the computer thinks is "actual".

NASA can take these raw images and process them in such a way that the colors are approximately true color. NASA has released thousands of photos that they say are in "approximate true color".
Or they often take the raw images and use false color -- like blue -- to make certain features stand out. They use blue because it offers a sharp enough contrast against the other colors to see the features more easily.

NASA can't use a digital camera that takes pictures in actual real color because such a camera does not exist.


EDIT: Here's a link to a thread posted a few years ago (posted by Kano -- I hope you don't mind, Kano) that explains how a digital camera works.
Link to Thread

EDIT(again): Oops! I see that 'elevatedone' has already posted a link to this thread. Well, I suppose it is worth repeating since it seems the OP is still confused.



[edit on 8/26/2007 by Soylent Green Is People]

Originally posted by SuicideVirus

Originally posted by blowfishdl
SERIOUSLY! Why are they all in black and white?

Scientists have proven that the atmosphere on Mars doesn't allow color to spread more than a few feet from an object, hence all the photos are in black and white. Do a little research. Geez!

Do you even know what color is???

Originally posted by SuicideVirus
The microscopic images are of objects that are too small to reflect a complete spectrum of colored light, so they appear in shades of gray. It's all science, man. And all of those "color" pictures you see have color added after the fact. If you were on Mars, it would be like looking at a black and white TV.

I hope you're just being a troll, because what you are saying here is completly wrong. It would be disheartening to think that you actually believe what you're saying.