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

From Opportunity, dataset Sol 294 found HERE. Continuing the close up views of the rockytop hill and pebbles.



Full size HERE.



Cheers!!!!

From Opportunity, dataset Sol 298 found HERE. We cannot forget our good friend...the sun dial! Every dataset on both Opportunity and Spirit has the images of the sun dial with the color calibration tabs and mirrors located on the outer silver edge of the white ring. The mirrors are there to see the sky as the pancam is calibrated.

The Sun Dial.



This image uses L2, L3, L4, L5, L6, and L7 filters.

Cheers!!!!

[edit on 17-12-2008 by RFBurns]

reply to post by RFBurns

Isnt that the xyz formula from Cornell? Quite different from the formula at the CIE link. Or am I looking at the wrong thing there?

Different how? I got the formulas from Cornell website.
marswatch.astro.cornell.edu...

Notice that there are many different RGB working spaces.
www.brucelindbloom.com...

Originally posted by RFBurns
From Opportunity, dataset Sol 298 found HERE. We cannot forget our good friend...the sundial! Every dataset on both Opportunity and Spirit has the images of the sundail with the color calibration tabs and mirrors located on the outer silver edge of the white ring. The mirrors are there to see the sky as the pancam is calibrated.

The Sun Dial.

This image uses L2, L3, L4, L5, L6, and L7 filters.

Cheers!!!!

Did you create that with your ENVI program?

I would like, if I may, to put forward a question regarding the MOTIVE that NASA might have for changing the colours. Believing that they routinely do so presupposes they have something to hide.

Look at the actual content of the images. There's nothing there. It's a desert. One vast sprawling, cold, dusty desert. No life. No "features". No design. No buildings. Nothing.

Even the endless stream of odd-shaped rocks that people post on these boards, under the premise that said rocks are in fact bananas, or running shoes, or daffodils, or footballs, or whatever - all of them are invariably to be found situated in the middle of endless plains of.... nothing.

The reason they aren't changing any colours is because they aren't hiding anything. And the reason they're not hiding anything is because there's nothing to hide.

LW

Originally posted by Phage
How very clever of you. You have caught the dreaded NASA at its game! Little did they know that you would be on their trail. I hope no one tells them their editbots need to be reprogrammed.

Lets hope they stay behind the curve, yes; how else are we going to learn the things the public really wants to know about Mars?

Oh, in light of what we know about Rayleigh scattering, what would the big secret about a blue sky be again?

If the Martian atmosphere were to be completely cleansed of dust, the daytime sky would appear blue, just as our own sky, because of Rayleigh scattering by the molecules (primarily carbon dioxide molecules) which make up the atmosphere. Pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope in the early 1990s suggested that the Martian atmosphere had much less dust loading than in the Viking years. So perhaps the Martian sky was closer to blue than in the Viking years(or perhaps the Hubble Space Telescope was inaccurate on this matter until repairs were completed in February 1997). However, Mars Pathfinder pictures in 1997 showed essentially the same sky color and dust loading as the Viking landers in 1976.

calspace.ucsd.edu...

"Essentially the same dust loading' two decades apart is what the type of base deception NASA is attempting to perpetuate in never seemingly admitting mistakes.

Frosty white water ice clouds and swirling orange dust storms above a vivid rusty landscape reveal Mars as a dynamic planet in this sharpest view ever obtained by an Earth-based telescope. The Earth-orbiting Hubble telescope snapped this picture on June 26, when Mars was approximately 43 million miles (68 million km) from Earth -- its closest approach to our planet since 1988. Hubble can see details as small as 10 miles (16 km) across. Especially striking is the large amount of seasonal dust storm activity seen in this image. One large storm system is churning high above the northern polar cap [top of image], and a smaller dust storm cloud can be seen nearby. Another large duststorm is spilling out of the giant Hellas impact basin in the Southern Hemisphere [lower right].

hubblesite.org...

Orange dust storms?

Most of the red Mars images resulted from using filters out of the range of human vision. Even recent rover panoramas and close-ups labeled “approximate true color” are made with infrared filters standing in for red. Olivier de Goursac, an imaging technician on the Viking Lander mission, argues that the glut of phony colors is easily avoidable. “NASA’s rovers have the capability for true-color imaging with the left camera eye, but they simply choose to use the L2 filter [infrared] as their red and the L7 filter [near-ultraviolet] for their blue,” he says. “They do this because they want to maximize the data stream by sending back to Earth images that can be readily used for stereo imaging with the widest possible range in the spectrum.”

discovermagazine.com...:int=1&-C=

So why is it that NASA keeps releasing pictures with captions' best approximation' when that is so blatantly false?

Originally posted by Phage
A couple of comments though. As pointed out in the old thread that was linked near the beginning of this thread, the process of coming up with a "true color" image is not simple and at best it is an approximation.

Within reason, yes, data can be hard to interpret without adequate means of reference which is after all why the rovers included means to properly calibrate against on board colors.

It is also entirely secondary to the science being done.

The people paying for this don't really care about the science and if they had a word to say about these budget allocations the truth would have been out a long time ago or we would not have sent such expensive pieces of hardware without the means to tell the public what they wanted to know.

The scientists really don't care what color Mars is, the only reason there is any attempt to produce "true color" images is for general consumption.

That is not true either. In geological terms true color can aid a great deal in the identification of minerals and geological formations and in the absence of digging/scraping tools and analysis color is pretty much what you have to work with. To suggest that true colors are not important is false but luckily the rovers where designed to give true color images the issue here being why they refuse to admit this or release data derived from the proper analysis of data.

It's not too surprising (or alarming, to me) that there may be some variation in the "almost true color" images.

But from our previous discussion you only seem surprised when someone argues that these wide range of colors doesn't in fact mean anything. Why on Earth would the same equipment yield such widely different results if the process employed and the calibration remained the same? I don't understand why you expect everyone to be fooled by this.

About the dust in the Martian atmosphere. Do you remember when Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991? Do you remember the sunsets afterward. Mount Pinatubo threw a lot of gunk high into the atmosphere and it affected the atmosphere of the whole planet (northern hemisphere mostly) for several years. On Mars, the dust storms are huge, in 1971 one covered the whole planet.

Right and our atmosphere is very dense as compared with that of Mars. At least that is if you believe those who have the means to acquire this data.

The storms carry dust very high into the atmosphere where it lingers for long periods of time. These storms and the dust devils ensure that the atmosphere of Mars carries a load of dust most of the time.

Why would dust there be suspended so much longer than on earth without the aid of our dense atmosphere? Is the gravity on Mars suddenly so low? If the atmosphere is dense enough to cause all these massive storms and suspend stuff with actual weight doesn't that just raise more questions than it provides answers?

The finer particles don't settle out when the storm is over. Because of the thinness of the atmosphere, Rayleigh scattering is much less of a factor on Mars than Earth and the dust becomes the major agent in the coloring of the sky.

Why don't they settle out and what can we learn about the martian atmosphere from that? How is Rayleigh scattering much less of a factor?

This image of a Martian sunset gives a good indication of what I'm talking about. You can see the sun setting indicating that the air is relatively clear at the surface yet you can see the haze created by high altitude dust.

And yes, there is a tinge of blue.

No kidding?







So if ANYONE wishes to claim that NASA can not come up with what every decent bit of reasoning and scientific knowledge suggested they should find on Mars they can take a look at those three pictures and call that a 'mistake' too. NASA knows very well how to arrive at the expected blue skies pictures but do their absolute best to obscure the fact that Mars would look exactly like Earth if you stood next to any of the Rovers.

Stellar

[edit on 17-12-2008 by StellarX]

reply to post by RFBurns


Good site!!! Check this out. I have to be somewhere now. I will come back tonight.

www.geocities.jp...

Since i am editing for spelling i should include a thank you to RFBurns and the few others who seem to be both educated enough to know that we are not getting to see NASA's true findings ( no their not just 'incompetent; lol) and smart enough to have figured out that this doesn't mean NASA is from the devil ( or working with aliens who live under the shuttle launch pad's ) and always busy foisting complete lies on us. The brilliant thing about these type of organizations is how you can put generally highly intelligent decent people at work and churn out so much misinformation and misdirection that you can have otherwise intelligent decent people online at each others throats in one page or less.

That is the beauty of these forms of 'open' deceptions.

Originally posted by Brainiac
So i take it your point is that Mars is actually covered with Blue Oceans and Green Trees and Grass... With deserts and Blue Clouds...

Yes, i reckon they may admit to 'large bodies of standing water' within a decade or so given the revelations about standing and flowing water in current geological times. I have some fantastic pictures that seems to look just like submerged icebergs.

As far as the green trees and grass goes we have some good hints that something is growing on Mars but since NASA have refused to include a mission biologist or similarly specialized people in their missions after Viking they either know that there is life or refuse to find out.

The blue clouds they do have and we now have proof that it snows ( water, not carbon dioxide nonsense) and good evidence that suggests that it rains as well.

The truth is that Mars is a Cold Rocky barren world, with Carbon Dioxide for Air, and Radiation eminating from within it's surface...

The atmosphere is so thin that water doesn't remain.

If one reads the most widely propagated NASA press releases this is most certainly the impression one would be left with.

I didn't include any links because i am confident that you have absolutely no interest in the truth. If you wish to discuss this matter in a civil tone i can and will do more to help rid you of all the misrepresentations you took on faith.

Stellar

[edit on 17-12-2008 by StellarX]

The truth
is out there.

Guys, this was done to death in 2005. Move on.

With the very real proposition that we cannot trust the images supplied to us by NASA, there should be a coalition of scientists working independently to develop third-party space missions rather than rely on our own government to testify to us.

Google put forth the initial steps in this concept, but I am yet to year of further progress since.

By the way it's a $30-million contest.

reply to post by Yoda411


Hi yoda! Ya it may have to come to the private sector actually getting us to Mars than waiting on NASA's snail pace. But maybe with China, Japan and India on NASA's tail, that may be the "fire under the seat" that spring-boards NASA back into action.


Cheers!!!!

reply to post by RFBurns


Maybe we should just fake a private landing on Mars and leave it to NASA to debunk?

They might really start telling the truth with the thought that we are right behind them.

Originally posted by Deaf Alien

Originally posted by RFBurns

Did you create that with your ENVI program?

Yes...part of it anyway. The Envi program is mostly designed to work with multi-spectral IR data. I used it to process the L2 and L7 layers, then exported them as independant color shaded layers, and in Gimp worked these with L3, 4 5 and 6. The only thing I did after that was to just kick up the overall color level a little and turned down gama just a tad (-5).

Looks great doesn it! It would not come out right without working the L2 and L7 first.

About the formula, Yes I recognized it was Cornell's, but what I was saying was that Cornell's formula is different from the formula on the CIS site you linked to. Which raises the question about Cornell's formulas and the various others being found. RGB is RGB no matter if your on Earth or on Alpha Centauri or Mars. The only change between here and Mars is the natural light intensity. We have dust storms, Mars has dust storms, We have wind, Mars has wind. The dust may be different in its makeup and color, but that does not change color standards for the human eye visible spectrum.

I have an idea, tho I dont know how complex it would be to implement it into the program your making. Could the xyz formula, and even the RGB formula, be modular or integrate these various formulas so that you can select between them and see the results based on these base formulas?

The thing about Cornell's final images. In Envi, a 7 grand piece of software that isnt a cheapie program, shows Cornell's images in the visual spectrum curves slightly higher in intensity compared to NASA's red colored images, but the curves are pretty darn close. Thats why I raised the question about their formula, if it is cooked, and I question it even more when seeing 3 other formulas for the xyz and even RGB functions, so we have 4 different variations. They all cannot be right. But perhaps just variables for given imager or light intensity or something.



Cheers!!!!

[edit on 17-12-2008 by RFBurns]

Originally posted by Yoda411
[
Maybe we should just fake a private landing on Mars and leave it to NASA to debunk?

They might really start telling the truth with the thought that we are right behind them.

ROFLMAO!!!! Good one yoda!!

Hmm...that may actually work! Heh I can just see it evolving, news coverage, press conferences, talk radio interviews, the works!

Oh man that would be one incredible thing to pull off to get NASA's attention!!



Cheers!!!!


[edit on 17-12-2008 by RFBurns]

reply to post by RFBurns



Hey, I think you misunderstood some of what I said.

There is a nice article on hubblesite.org that explains that the color images from Hubble are built up from black and white images. All of the cameras on Hubble are black and white and they use filters to get a red, blue, and green image that they can combine to make a color image. As others on this thread have explained, you can get a color image from that process but you cannot call it a true color image.

NASA did not alter the sky color to blue, they alter it to show a red sky, because that is what the public has been led to believe about Mars. A CO2 atmosphere is blue, red particles of dust can cause the sky on Mars to look yellow, green, orange, or red, but the normal color is blue. I have seen multiple NASA engineers explain the reason for the color alteration of Mars pics. Also, in the late 70's Time/Life books published a very nice book on the Viking missions and they mentioned the color alteration there and they even published a photo with and without the alteration.

I have looked online for an article that I read about 7 years ago that discussed the airbrushing of deep space images. I haven't found it yet but I will keep looking. NASA admitted that it airbrushes some photos as part of their enhancement techniques, because some of the most spectacular eatures are not visible in natural light. It was all in a MSM article. I remember it because it cause a big stink and NASA had to hold a press conference to elaberate.

reply to post by lunarminer


HI! Actually I did understand your post, as well as how the Hubble gets the visual color images.

Those layers cover alot more spectrum than the rover filters, so they are far more closer to actual color than the stuff from Mars. But again, even with the basic RGB filters, narrow or wide, the blue filter is going to pick up blue no matter what, as is the green and the red. If there is nothing blue in the shot, the blue filter will not pick up anything blue that does not exsist in the shot. Same with the red and green.

We are seeing it as it gets picked up by Hubble. NASA just assembles those layers and makes an RGB composite picture from those assembled color layers. Its the same process as layering the rover raw dataset images.

They may crank up the color saturation a bit to bring the colors out more, but that does not mean they are putting in blue or red or green to make up for missing color that the filters are already seeing. The Hubble has a very wide spectral pickup capability, the visual range for human eye sight is also included. The Hubble's visual spectral range for human vision is considerably wider than those from the Spirit and Opportunty rovers.

The Mars images, we were told from day one, since Viking sent that very first color image back to Earth, which was not a red saturated image, but after that, all others were red, that Mars is a dull, dead, dry, nothing here folks move along song and dance. It doesnt make any sense to lie about it when eventually someone else is going to get at the truth. And that is steadily approaching with other nations talking about sending probes and manned missions to the planet. They too are not going to just accept NASA"s word when they have the ability to find out for themselves. Why should they just take NASA at their word when they can go see for themselves? I know that must have NASA shaking in their shoes because when that data comes back from those other nation's probes, NASA is going to have some pretty heavy explaning to do.

It wouldnt surprise me that if data comes back from those other nation's probes, that NASA will throw out some lame excuse like "well their equipment is not as sophisticated as ours..." blah blah bs. I wouldnt buy that if it were the only option left on Earth.



Cheers!!!!

[edit on 17-12-2008 by RFBurns]

From Opportunity, dataset Sol 310 found HERE. A crop..er rock circle on Mars? Not quite. This is from the abrasive tool on Opportunity to dig into rocks and to examine closely with the "microcam" camera.



Full size HERE.



Cheers!!!!

[edit on 17-12-2008 by RFBurns]

From Opportunity, dataset Sol 314 found HERE. Another rocky hlltop closeup with those pebbles, but some of these have the blueish/purple color compared to others that have the noraml light brown/yellow color and the light blue ones.




Full size HERE.



Cheers!!!!

From Opportunity, dataset Sol 315 found HERE. A look onto a valley with a bright spot off in the distance. Some would say this is the airbags and motherpad. I would agree, except that by this time, the rover was a good distance from the landing spot. But it very well could be just something reflecting the sunlight that is on the motherpad. What do you think?



Full size HERE.



Cheers!!!!

reply to post by StellarX


Thanks for the comment StellarX! I and others here appreciate it very much!


From Opportunity, dataset Sol 324 found HERE.

The leftovers of what was once the rocket decceleration unit that slows down the rover/motherpad/airbag module before letting it go to bounce its way to a stop. The rocket decceleration unit can re-gain altitude very quickly once it releases the weight of the rover and then once the rocket runs out of fuel, it free-falls down to the surface and BAM, leaving a mess.

I wonder if there will be any missions after the first few manned missions that will be scheduled to go and clean up these messes. After all, if we are going to keep Earth beautiful, we should do the same for Mars.

"Don't Mess With Mars!"



Full size HERE.



Cheers!!!!

[edit on 18-12-2008 by RFBurns]