Naked Venus Controversy: How would Venus look to the naked eye?

The colour of Venus has caused a bit of controversy in the past. Here are some examples of where the issue has been raised.

Will the Real Planet Venus Please Stand Up!

Since when is VENUS red?

I just thought I would share a few images of Venus that will give you a better idea what Venus might actually look like if you looked out of a spacecraft window at it.

First of all this is not what Venus would look like to the naked eye. The picture below is a false color image.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/5d96dd61b890.jpg[/atsimg]

If colors are estimated correctly, there is a final issue of tone mapping. How bright does the image appear to the eye in a given context. The image above is the best color image of Venus I've found, showing the planet as it would likely appear to a human observer in space. It was made by Turkish astronomer A. Tayfun Oner, using the two color channels from the Galileo camera, and a third interpolated channel.

SOURCE OF ABOVE IMAGE AND TEXT: mentallandscape.com...

Here is Venus in natural (RGB) light. Unlike many beautiful amateur images that combine IR and UV light to create a false color image, I wanted to create a true color image of this beautiful but difficult planet to image.

Shown are an IR-R-G-B composite where IR is used as a luminance and the RGB channels provide the color and saturation, and the true color RGB composite. Each image combines about 2500 of 10000 frames per channel through the individual filters.

The images were taken on the evening of May 22, 2010 shortly before sunset, while Venus was still at a reasonable altitude (around 40-50 degrees) and in very good seeing.

SOURCE OF ABOVE IMAGE AND TEXT: www.celestronimages.com...

So there you have it. If these images are anything to go by, Venus would look... Well, cloudy and grey. Like most of the year where I live in England. Those Venusians must get sick of the clouds too.

I always thought people understood Venus to be covered in clouds...though I always picture them in my minds eye a slightly jaundice yellow. Also, the reddish image you posted was made from radar maps of the surface, color coded to roughly match the Soviet Venera probes surface panoramas.

mentallandscape.com...

I can't agree more with your sentiment.
I doubt Venus is the volcanic world that certain orgs tell us.
I can't wait till the day that our sources finally reveal most if not all of our planets hold life.

Originally posted by NuminousCosmos
I always thought people understood Venus to be covered in clouds...though I always picture them in my minds eye a slightly jaundice yellow.

I think the more jaundiced looking images are color enhanced. If you look there is a slightly yellow tinge on these images.

Originally posted by NuminousCosmos
Also, the reddish image you posted was made from radar maps of the surface, color coded to roughly match the Soviet Venera probes surface panoramas.

mentallandscape.com...

I wondered why they chose that color for the surface map images. I have to say though, I'm not sure Venus is really that color on the surface.


In the panorama above, even the parts of the Venera probe look a reddish color. Surely the probe isn't that color. That looks suspiciously like a red filter or the images aren't true color.. It is reminiscent of the Mars images where you can even see a color calibration bar visible in the photograph and it is obvious a red filter has been used.

reply to post by Pimander

Well, she sure does look pretty in any case. A slight touch of blue going on with lots of white frosting on top (clouds?). Nice find. One red, angry planet in our solar system is enough.

www.universetoday.com...

img465.imageshack.us...

Looks reddish to me.

I think there is a lot of background regarding Soviet technology and imaging systems that wouldn't be appropriate for this thread. However, I see no reason to doubt the veracity of what was sent back...only how people interpret the data.

reply to post by Pimander

Do they have a colour chart like they did with the Mars rovers? I think it was "a member of the public" that noticed the camera was calibrated incorrectly. I could be wrong but I think I remember reading that somewhere. All of a sudden red skies were turned to blue. One of the RGB channels was "set" wrongly or something like that, leading to the heavy colour sweep.
ETA Contains link to ATS thread also noting the colour difference.
Mars Rover Colours

I have always wondered how lots of things out in space would look to the naked eye. It always seems to me that when you see an article on a new discovery in space, the picture is always an "artists rendering". I wanna see the real deal, not what they want us to see.

Originally posted by NuminousCosmos
Looks reddish to me.

I think there is a lot of background regarding Soviet technology and imaging systems that wouldn't be appropriate for this thread. However, I see no reason to doubt the veracity of what was sent back...only how people interpret the data.

Actually, it does look as though whole parts of the craft were red. I'd still like to see an Earth shot of the parts that are visible on the panoramic photographs, just to be sure.

This looks like a good example to shed light on the surface color issue.

The surface of Venus as seen by the Venera 13 spacecraft. The picture may look a bit distorted, but that's intentional. The top picture shows the actual color of the surface. This orangish tint is due to the cloud cover. The bottom picture has been altered to remove the coloring by the clouds, so this is how Venus would look under normal lighting. Due to the severe conditions on the surface of the planet, a spacecraft may have only one chance to take a picture before it is destroyed, so the lens is shaped in such a way to get as much information as possible. That is why there is such a distorted view, since it not only shows the ground directly below the spacecraft but also how things look in the distance.

SOURCE: www.uni.edu...

Originally posted by LightSpeedDriver
Do they have a colour chart like they did with the Mars rovers?

The imageshack image numinous posted above has a color chart on it. For a discussion of using the information to try to calibrate see about two thirds of the way down the page below. I can only guess whether it will mean anything to you....

img465.imageshack.us...]

The long and short of it is:

Precise color balance of the Venera-13 and 14 images has never been calculated with complete satisfaction, in part because the radiometric response of the camera is uncertain.

Don P. Mitchell: Drilling into the Surface of Venus

reply to post by Pimander


i look at it all the time with my telescope in detail, there is a little bit of orange and yellow on the surface but due to the clouds being lit up by the sun

Originally posted by Pimander

Originally posted by NuminousCosmos
I always thought people understood Venus to be covered in clouds...though I always picture them in my minds eye a slightly jaundice yellow.

I think the more jaundiced looking images are color enhanced. If you look there is a slightly yellow tinge on these images.

Originally posted by NuminousCosmos
Also, the reddish image you posted was made from radar maps of the surface, color coded to roughly match the Soviet Venera probes surface panoramas.

mentallandscape.com...

I wondered why they chose that color for the surface map images. I have to say though, I'm not sure Venus is really that color on the surface.

In the panorama above, even the parts of the Venera probe look a reddish color. Surely the probe isn't that color. That looks suspiciously like a red filter or the images aren't true color.. It is reminiscent of the Mars images where you can even see a color calibration bar visible in the photograph and it is obvious a red filter has been used.

edit on 8/1/12 by Pimander because: (no reason given)

edit on 8/1/12 by Pimander because: forgot to mention the pic was Venera

That is because the sunlight scatters differently through the very thick Venusian atmosphere.

Originally posted by juleol
That is because the sunlight scatters differently through the very thick Venusian atmosphere.

I've been trying to rack my brain (that's the king of guy I am) to understand how the essentially white(ish) clouds make the sky a reddish color on Venus. The only time we get red is at sunrise and sunset on Earth.



My theory is that it's the denser atmosphere filtering out the more violet end of the spectrum. I think the longer wavelength red is likely more penetrating in the Vunusian atmosphere.



In this picture taken from high altitude in a plane, you can see how the sky appears redder where the light has to pass through more of the atmosphere lower down.



Watch the Moon get redder in this time-lapse of the Moonset at Manhatten beach. God it's sooooo beautiful. Why did I sell my old scope? I want to book the observatory for the whole year and just live in it! I'd save loads of money on rent too. What project can I propose where I would get to monopolise the facilities?


All of which means it makes no sense that the Martian sky would look red! Surely it would be blue.

Now, would the parachute on the probe have worked in the hot, dense Venusian atmosphere? Does anyone know what materials have been used to make parachutes for probes to Venus?

This is our toy here in Nottingham.

The main telescope is a modified Newtonian (500mm Newise). The telescope consists of two mirrors. The main mirror (a concave mirror of 0.5m in diameter and 2.25m focal length) collects the light and creates an image. The secondary plane mirror reflects the collected light out of the telescope so that the observer can view the image without standing in front of the telescope. This telescope is 1.3m long and weighs 42kg.

Attached to the main telescope are two further telescopes. The small finder scope is much smaller and is used to view a larger region of the sky than with the main scope. It is fitted with a cross hair to point the main scope in the right direction.

The solar telescope (SV-50 Solarview 50mm) is a refractor or telescope using lenses to collect the light. Its light collecting main lens is 50mm in diameter and has a focal length of 400mm. This optical setup is ideal to observe the Sun. With this scope the Sun is only observed in a very specific colour, called H alpha, which allows us to see certain detail on the Sun's surface. To achieve this a set of filters is included in the telescope.

SOURCE: www.ntu.ac.uk...

P.S. I'm not an astronomer just in case any of you guys are trying to identify me.

Originally posted by Pimander
All of which means it makes no sense that the Martian sky would look red! Surely it would be blue.

Now, would the parachute on the probe have worked in the hot, dense Venusian atmosphere? Does anyone know what materials have been used to make parachutes for probes to Venus?

Oh. It's gone quiet. Is this thread really that boring.

Has nobody - on the king of conspiracy sites - ever taken the trouble to check what the parachutes for Venusian probes were made of?

Here's a few hints. The surface temperature is supposed to be ~872 Farenheit. The melting point of lead is only 621 Farenheit. The atmospheric pressure is allegedly 92 times that of Earth's. The winds in Venus upper atmosphere are capable of blowing 100m/s (metres per second or 300 feet per second) although it is calmer lower down as the atmosphere is supposed to be VERY dense.

Does anyone know enough about silk to know whether it is suitable for temperatures higher than the melting point of lead? Most man made fibres would melt at those temperatures.


ETA: Venera 7 returned slightly hotter surface temps than that above.


So far I'm guessing glass fiber or Kevlar but can't find a Venus probe parachute spec anywhere.

So why does the sky on Mars look red again?

reply to post by Pimander

Thin atmosphere = Blue

Thick atmosphere = Red

Please explain the Martian red sky effect. If you can that is!

I think that Every planet with a thick atmosphere will have a redder sky than planets with thin atmospheres.

Just look at Titan and Venus, Mars might have a thin atmosphere but all of the Iron Oxide in it makes it look red.

reply to post by Pimander

Does anyone know enough about silk to know whether it is suitable for temperatures higher than the melting point of lead?

The parachutes were released from the landers at a fairly high altitude above the surface.....for instance, in the case of Venera 13, at 50 km high. (The other landers that survived to the surface successfully should have used a similar technique).

The extreme "lead melting" temps are at the surface, it is safe to presume that at higher altitudes it is not as hot.

Here is a chart that graphs the Venusian Atmospheric Temp. Profile

At roughly 50 km, the temperature is about 339° K, or 66° C (151° F).

Perfectly acceptable for parachute material to withstand.

Originally posted by PluPerfect
Perfectly acceptable for parachute material to withstand.

The parachute would not have stayed at 50km though. It would have got closer and closer to the high temperatures and then melted.

A different observation. Look at the pictures earlier in this thread of Venus (via telescope) in multiple frequency bands.

Look at the infrared one: IR, and see the very bright "shell" being emitted from the atmosphere. That is the greenhouse effect: the atmosphere shines awfully bright in infrared. Venus has a huge greenhouse effect and that why it is hot as hell.

If humans could naturally see in infrared, there would probably be no controversy about global warming on Earth. It would be intuitively obvious to everybody that the atmosphere shines hot, and making it shine more will make it hotter on the surface.

Venus is also an example showing that there is no "self-limiting" to the greenhouse effect remotely applicable to the case on Earth.