Monday, 7 January 2013

Over saturated Moon


This picture was taken with a Canon 40D through my Etx 105 at prime focus .
Normally a colour image of the moon is grey with some slightly blueish areas. During post processing I often change elements like contrast  to bring out the shadows but I recently learnt from Filipe Alves that by increasing the saturation of the colours in the image, details about the Moons geology composition can be revealed.
I have not added any colours to this image, merely magnified the colours in the image.
It is often called a false colour image as this is not how its seen with the naked eye.
In 1992 NASA's spacecraft Galileo produced an image using filters that is remarkably similar. The blue colour shows titanium rich areas whilst the orange areas are lower in titanium. The Sea of Tranquillity where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed in Apollo 11 in 1969 is to the right of centre and shows up really blue so its high in titanium.
Anyway all that aside, I think its good to see the moon is not just grey but a marvolous mix of colour.

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