Global True Color View Of Venus? Options

[elakdawalla]

I'm creating a website with views of the worlds of the solar system, to scale with each other (it'll march up and down the few orders of magnitude necessary), and I am having a terrible time finding a global view of Venus to include in it that fits the criteria I'm trying to apply. To the extent possible, I am searching for:

- Full-disk, global view
- Minimum phase angle available
- Approximate true color, as would be perceived by a human observing the globe from space

For Venus, the only global views I am finding are either based on Magellan data (radar views, nothing like what a human would see) or are colorized ultraviolet views (which greatly overemphasize the visibility of cloud patterns in the Venusian atmosphere). I've seen the lovely partial global view of Venus on Don Mitchell's website -- that's the sort of thing I'm looking for, but I need a full disk. Does anybody have any suggestions? Anybody done any work with Mariner 10 or Galileo data that produces a nice, realistic view?

[scalbers]

Yes indeed the actual contrast is much more subtle than in the Pioneer UV images. For example Ricardo Nune's images show Venus Express processed into approximate RGB, showing rather subtle hues. This procedure might be applied to the Pioneer UV images perhaps, even though these are monochromatic. It's kind of interesting to me to consider whether the human eye can perceive at least some faint contrast/color with Venus. Perhaps it relates to violet light sensitivity that can vary between individuals.

I haven't found too many spectra of Venus or its cloud features. Here is a VIMS spectrum of Venus for reference, though I'm unsure of the field of view.

http://vims.artov.rm.cnr.it/data/res-ven.html

More discussion is here:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...amp;#entry20237

Here is a book excerpt showing illustrations of visual observations of Venus' clouds, so the contrast is detectable to some, seen right here from planet Earth:

http://books.google.com/books?id=LqwUuMYIE...ope&f=false

[4th rock from th...]

...It's kind of interesting to me to consider whether the human eye can perceive at least some faint contrast/color with Venus. Perhaps it relates to violet light sensitivity that can vary between individuals...

My personal experience is positive. I can see "something" on Venus through a telescope. My best description would be of a white crescent with some brighter parts. Those bright spots look slightly fluorescent. But it's not obvious, the contrast is very subtle and there's no color at all. Like looking at snow deposited over snow.

I think it has to do with the Rod cells on our eyes. Those are most sensitive to wavelengths of light around 498 nm and are responsable for the Purkinje effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purkinje_effect. Perhaps something like that works for Venus.