Evidence that NASA is altering the true colours of the pictures of Mars

Investigation shows that there are several indications that NASA is tampering with the colours, and changes them from an Earth-like environment into a red inhospitable environment. But it seems that the young scientists at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are not convinced with this.

Colour tabs have changed:

In the below image you can see that the Mars Rover's sundial has some kind of colour coded markers on each corner of the dial.



...In this image from the same Nasa website we can see that the coloured markers that go around the dial are now ALL red:



Why are the photographs that come back from Mars being tampered with to change colours? Is the Mars environment really as desolate, baron and harsh as photographed? Or is there something being kept from us? Is the landscape of Mars full of colour or maybe ruins of a past civilisation?

I'm sure many of you have seen the images of the supposed piece of "timber" that was leaked from Nasa, I wonder what else is being kept hidden from us, I wonder what the true colours of that photograph would have shown us?

Thanks for your time!

Source 2

Source 1

[edit on 11-12-2008 by IceColdPro]

Ya it is pretty easy to reclaim the color on their images if there is something white in the image. Just adjust the rgb channels appropriately for white balance and you pretty much got the right color. It might not be exact down to the millionth nth decimal points that some would claim it must be at to be valid, but if its close, and represents at least a proper white color on something that is white, then thats good enough.



Cheers!!!!

Here is one example. After adjusting the color on an image from the Opportunity rover that had a section of the arm in the image and referencing the white color from the pictures taken of the rover before it left Earth, saving those rgb adjustments, I applied them to one of the images taken by the same rover as it sat near a hill.

The first image is NASA's always this color color image.




Here is the source image link straight from our friends at NASA.

Source


This one is with the saved rgb adjustements applied and the image rotated to stand vertically straight and cropped by about 10 percent to get rid of the edge mis-allignments of their two original pieced together image.






Nice..isnt it.


It doesnt take nuclear science to do a simple white balance adjustment and restore missing green and missing blue to get a close representation of the true color of Mars.




Cheers!!!!

[edit on 11-12-2008 by RFBurns]

Here is another good example using the whispy cloud image published by NASA taken from the Opportunity rover.

Applying the same rgb white balance settings as before, here are the results.



Fist image is NASA's always this color color image.






Here is the adjusted image with the very same rgb settings as used before. Note how the clouds are actually white!! And the blue sky!! And the obvious moist looking muddy ground!!!!




Neat eh?!

Tip. Take a picture from one of the NASA sites that shows the rovers in their building stages that has a white part of them in the picture. Note the RGB levels in the image and save those numbers.

Then take one of these so called color images that are red as heck and apply those RGB settings you saved. Wala, you got the TRUE color of mars. Well a very close TRUE color that doesnt need to be flung out to Alpha Centauri decimal point precision to get an idea of what it is really like on Mars.

And for those skeptics who insist on proof but dont like to provide proof themselves, here is the link to the original. As you can see, the image at top is not a fake or some elaborate shot taken here on Earth. It is NASA's image.

Source URL for image




Cheers!!!!

[edit on 11-12-2008 by RFBurns]

I don't see any evidence of colour tampering, I can see white and red, if th atmosphere has a red tint then the majority of the image ill be red, same when you go into a nightclub and th lights are blue or yellow you only see blue or yellow. I don't get what you are trying to prove, go look in a telescope you can see for yourself the planet it red.

reply to post by spitefulgod


What the heck are you talking about?

Originally posted by spitefulgod
I don't get what you are trying to prove, go look in a telescope you can see for yourself the planet it red.

Did you do that?

reply to post by spitefulgod



The surface of the planet is red, that doesnt mean that the sky is red too.

The sky color is a result of the makeup of the elements within it and sunlight reflecting through it, just as it is here on Earth, otherwise, our sky would vary in color over the oceans, the dry land, the tropics, the ice and everything in between.

Thats not the case tho is it.


Cheers!!!!

Also spitefulgod, have you ever seen a sunset? Notice how the sky changes from its daytime blue to a redish/orange color?

It is due to the amount of sunlight refractions through the elements in the sky, not ground colors!!!

And if you look more closely, in both examples, the ground doesnt change its red color all that much even when restoring the missing green and blue saturations.



Teehee



Cheers!!!!

[edit on 11-12-2008 by RFBurns]

reply to post by kcire


Yes but it was small

Speaking of telescopes, how about the look through Hubble, even it can see the blue in the sky from the outside in!

Bullet The Blue Sky

Got the blues yet?



Cheers!!!!

reply to post by Deaf Alien


I always thought the colour came from the dust particles in the atmosphere, as others stated here the planet is red (due to oxidation I presume) the atmosphere is mostly CO2 although this wouldn't give much of a tint, Isn't it the mass of the particles in the atmosphere, that's why you have some extremely red, some not so.

Anywho he is my coloured pic


You'll have to forgive the colours I'm colour blind.

I can see why you think they might be coloured but why would they colour the dials but not the nice metal shiny thing?

Thats pretty good!

We know from the Phoenix probe that ice is just underneath the surface. In some areas this ice is exposed and does melt into liquid water, as demonstrated on the Phoenix probe by scouping this up and letting it sit in its collector. The ice melted, probably from the sunlight and temps at the surface, then it evaporated and that means it ends up into the atmosphere as vapour.

Yes there is more CO2 in the atmosphere than there is H2O vapor particles. But there is enough to see that it is not completely red.

In the first set of photos the pictures were taken almost mid day on mars when the sunlight is at its greatest. In the second set of images, the picture was taken a few hours before sunset, thus we see a little less blue but the clouds are white. There are some other images taken by both Spirt and Opportunity that have clouds in them that are indeed white in color and behind them the faint blueish sky.

I wasnt trying to prove anything, just applying simple white balance adjustments to all those very red pictures, particularly those that were taken during the midday hours when the sunlight is brightest.

Here is an excellnet sunset picture on Mars taken by the rover Spirit.

Martian sunset

In that photo it also shows some blue as well as the redish/orange color, alot like how a typical sunset looks like here on Earth.



Cheers!!!!

reply to post by spitefulgod


The metal thing is stainless steel. In the over red saturated images, even stainless steel tends to look red. But your adjustment even helps restore the normal look of the steel as it should look, shiny and steel looking!

When Mars goes through those nasty dust storms and the rovers are taking pictures, the sky becomes saturated with the red dust, just like how our sky can turn brownish color from the dirt and dust blown into the air. The sky then becomes brownish and not very blue.

The sunset image from Spirit is probably the best example of a calm evening on Mars that allows for a good variance in how it really looks up there. We see some blue in the light area of the sky, some red, and then the darker area.

Its just my opinion but I think that sunset picture is probably the actual picture with no adjustment to the RGB levels at all. But thats just an opinion I cant prove it. But to me it sure looks alot like a sunset in a western desert sky.



Cheers!!!!

Originally posted by spitefulgod

You'll have to forgive the colours I'm colour blind.

woah.. are you actually color blind, or are you just joking?

because.. not to be a colorblind racist or anything.. but that kind of disqualifies you from comparative analysis in this debate here...

(not that there's much of a debate, the NASA images are clearly doctored... just like anything they release)

-

I'm going to have to reserve judgment on this, as I know embarrassingly little about image manipulation and the type of color adjustments you all are doing here. I have to say, though, there are some very compelling images here.

I have a question regarding the color adjustments. Forgive me if this is offensively elementary: If an image is taken of Mars and the dense redness you see is really there, can you later adjust the colors to cause, for instance, the sky to become blue? Or is this impossible? Would that type of color change be a different task than the one you all have performed?

[edit on 11/12/08 by paperplanes]

Originally posted by paperplanes
I'm going to have to reserve judgment on this, as I know embarrassingly little about image manipulation and the type of color adjustments you all are doing here. I have to say, though, there are some very compelling images here.

I have a question regarding the color adjustments. Forgive me if this is offensively elementary: If an image is taken of Mars and the dense redness you see is really there, can you later adjust the colors to cause, for instance, the sky to become blue? Or is this impossible? Would that type of color change be a different task than the one you all have performed?

[edit on 11/12/08 by paperplanes]

With photoshop and other image editing apps available, these days, anyone can change any picture to show whatever they like.

Originally posted by IceColdPro
With photoshop and other image editing apps available, these days, anyone can change any picture to show whatever they like.

So how might an individual like me, lacking any of the tech knowledge you all ostensibly have, discern the facts in this instance? If what you say is true, wouldn't that mean that you, RFBurns and anyone else submitting similar images could be completely transforming the colors from the red that they truly are? What would compel me to believe that the red hue is the errant shade, while the clearer, more terrestrial colors are the natural ones?

Thank you for the information, but I've only become further confused .

reply to post by paperplanes


There are 3 main colors to create the different colors within a color image.

Red Green and Blue.

The key to adjusting the extremely red images is to look for something that should be white, like a piece of the rover that is supposed to be white, for example, the rover's extending arm casing is white.

That can be verified by simply finding an image of the rover or probe on a NASA webstie that has a photo of the rover or probe prior to its launching, say a photo taken during its testing or final assembly phases.

Then take those nice red saturated images that not only shows the scenery being photographed, but one that also includes a part of the rover or probe that is white.

Adjust your green and blue color adjustments, and maybe even turn down the red color adjustment so that the white part is white. It may also take a little bit of brightness adjustment and contrast adjustment to peak the white.

That should do it.

I should point out that by adjusting something white that is supposed to be white is not purposely adjusting these images so that they come out anyway you want them to. It is not just randomly adjusting colors. It is to achieve what is called a proper white balance, which any photographer can tell you, a proper white balance is the only way to get the proper colors in a picture or video.

The images I have posted are images taken during a calm Martian day. Not when there is wind storms kicking up red dirt all over the place, just as it does here on Earth when during a high wind, dirt gets kicked up into the air and on heavy wind storms kicking up alot of dirt, the sky and even things that are white no longer look like they should, the sky and other things change color because the light from the sun is now in effect filtered and no longer lets things show their true colors like they should. The same thing occurs on Mars.

When those dust storms kick up on Mars, all that red dirt flings up into the air, making everything look red. But the wind does not always blow on Mars just as it doesnt always blow here on Earth. There are calm wind days and there are bad hair wind days.


Cheers!!!!

[edit on 11-12-2008 by RFBurns]

reply to post by paperplanes


What is important is the calibration colors on the sundial. What RFBurns have done is adjust the rgb values to match the calibration colors as closely as possible.



Also, this is what they showed at the press release.

Notice the sky? Did they slip up and show Mars' true color?