[X] My Assistant

[MERovingian]

We've just got the first color picture from MSL today
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4282

if I understood it well, this is the first time ever that a real color camera has been sent to the Red planet.

Something is nagging me though, and certainly this is here in UMSF that I will get the correct and definitive answer.
Since the 70s and the Viking missions, there's always been debates about the real color of the surface and skies of Mars. They had indeed come up with funny results during the Viking missions with nearly blue skies!

Then came the MERs, and the pictures were, and still are (go Oppy go!), taken through three filters, and then it's all a question of mixing all this together (by now you must have guessed that I am neither a photographer nor a photoshoper!). But as often seen here on this site, everyone has then hers or his own interpretation when it comes to the final result. I have indeed seen here much better looking Martian pics than on the MER site (sometimes, not always)

All this to say that up until this morning, we weren't 100% sure that what we were seing was the real Mars, in its true colors but a very close aproximation. Correct?

So my question is this: is this picture from MSL the very first one to show us the real Martian colors??

Thanks.

[Deimos]

Well, it is known that Bayer filters hold the magical key to truth. And of course, beauty is truth, so better looking colors are truer. But, I think the truth is being covered up in that image (by a dusty lens cover, no less).

There is no such thing as the one "true color" for something (many illusions rely on this and consumer cameras are generally designed to correct for this). The debate will, sadly, continue. We know approximately what it looks like, and we have seen many products that have colors other than what we would perceive, but contain truth in their own ways. But if you really, truly want real, and do not accept what we measure, you must experience yourself. You cannot even rely on someone else's subjective description of what color seemed true to them--that's worse even than believing a Bayer filter pattern or a calibrated color measurement.

[ugordan]

Well, it is known that Bayer filters hold the magical key to truth.

That maybe tongue-in-cheek, but I'm looking forward to the one thing Bayer filters have over the classic RGB wheel approach : no more rainbow shadows, dust devils, etc. during 3 exposures. On a side note, I'm somewhat disappointed to see that apparently the lossy algorithm of choice will again be JPEG and not something wavelet-based.

[RoverDriver]

That maybe tongue-in-cheek, but I'm looking forward to the one thing Bayer filters have over the classic RGB wheel approach : no more rainbow shadows, dust devils, etc. during 3 exposures. On a side note, I'm somewhat disappointed to see that apparently the lossy algorithm of choice will again be JPEG and not something wavelet-based.

Are you talking for public release or for transmission to Earth?

Paolo

[ugordan]

Are you talking for public release or for transmission to Earth?

Onboard compression and transmission to Earth.