NASA thinks we are idiots?

What is the difference between this 2 pictures:





1st one is the original RGB TRUE COLORS:
marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...
marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...
marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

2nd one is NASA's ORIGINAL TRUE COLORS press release

[Edited on 14-2-2004 by yomitu]

I dont see the point...Please share.

NASA doesn't know how to color by numbers? I dunno, what's different?

AFAIK, the rover does not take RGB or true color images. It uses filter wheels and creates grayscale images, which are then combined back on earth to produce color images.

It is open to interpretation, even NASA admit that.

Check the forum libraries for an excellent discussion of "why the colors look weird" -- it was prepared by one of our members, and cited by (among others) Slashdot and several other sites.

What troubles me is that the NASA rover cameras seem specifically designed to make accurate* color images impossible, because the RGB filters are so narrow. Why isn't more flexiblity built into them?

*I'm using the term 'accurate' to describe colors that mimic normal and average human eyesight

[Edited on 14-2-2004 by Condorcet]

The above looks like a pic of a fluid sea. And the one below looks more like ... sand.
I think you see the landscape better in the below picture, it's more lit up. I dont know wich one shows the most "true color".

The more complex the camera, as well as the data packets to process and transmit, compounds the size of transmission and time required of a color image to earth, as well as additional power requirements.

Many other systems; power, data transmission, cpu processing power, are all affected by the additional requirements put on them by better camera's.

Plus a camera has to be designed to withstand the space and mars environments and radiation, and almost all consumer cameras do not fall in this category, as they are designed to be flimsy and cheap, and are unable to protect against hostile environments and atmospheres.

OK what is that thing in the middle of the pic it looks artificial????

It's the parachute and backplate of the lander.

Yomitu, please review Kano's fine thread which outlines in great detail the information needed to avoid leaping to inaccurate conclusions.

In many cases, a simple mix of L4-L5-L6 will NOT produce a reasonable color-balanced photo, because the pre-processing on the rover amplifies each picture until the brightest point (in that color) is at the maximum value.

This is done INDEPENDENTLY for each color, so unless the frames are dampened back down to their original levels, the mix between them is thrown off.

The amplification is done to ensure that each frame has a maximum signal-to-noise ratio. That makes it a little more difficult to recombine the pictures easily (unless the brightest point in the shot is either white or gray in actuality), but gives the scientists more data.

I'd really like to see them go out of their way to provide the amplification levels for each frame, as that would make a recombination for interested third parties much simpler and with significantly increased accuracy.

The NASA shot is one that I would consider "reasonable" based on comparison to other shots containing the calibration tool. The naive L4-L5-L6 mix is inconsistent with those shots.

[Edited on 2-14-2004 by BarryKearns]

HELLO people the top picture is more clearer and has water and the bottom just looks red and fake.

Originally posted by AD5673
HELLO people the top picture is more clearer and has water and the bottom just looks red and fake.

I am sure that NASA doesn't think that everyone is an idiot, just a certain subset of the population.

Originally posted by AD5673
HELLO people the top picture is more clearer and has water and the bottom just looks red and fake.

Oh come on. So what's the parachute lying on then?

Originally posted by AD5673
HELLO people the top picture is more clearer and has water and the bottom just looks red and fake.

thats not water.

Yeah if that were water, that thing wouldn't be floating. Do people here forget what water is like? I sometimes really wonder. The image with the blue looks horribly fake. Not to mention that if that blue area was water. What the hell is it doing going up over the creator rim like that? And making bumps like that no less.

Some people should use there heads. Plus Oppertunity will be driving out of the creator soon and will be heading out across the sand. If that were water, The rover wouldn't be able to do that.

I guess what he is trying to show is that NASA is giving us false pictures of the surface of Mars. Right? I mean, if it is BLUE - looks like water to me - and the other is desert, doesn't that show something is being hidden? Obviously. What I want to know is that, how did you get the true color image, I mean, if it was NASA's site, don't you think they would have distorted it BEFORE they put it up as a picture to view???

-wD

As Barry has mentioned, the top image is what it would look like with all channels equalized. You can re-create this yourself by opening the bottom image in photoshop and using the 'Auto-Levels' option.

It is quite simply incorrect.

OK, maybe the colors are no real colors, but �why the sand in the bottom of the picture is brown and where the parachute is, it's blue?

�Maybe because it's not sand? I'm not saying that is water, I just say that it's not sand.

Perhaps if you read other peoples posts instead of the first and last line you might understand yomitu.