6 ms·

It's kind of weird seeing crystal clear HD pictures of space objects. I think we just associate blurry black & white images with space, since most of the probes

It's kind of weird seeing crystal clear HD pictures of space objects. I think we just associate blurry black & white images with space, since most of the probes that we have currently exploring other planets and moons were launched before it was practical to include full-color HD cameras (and/or the requisite data transmission capacity) on space probes. (Similar to how people subjectively prefer 24 FPS for feature films.)

teekert 11y ago
Yes, very unreal! It would be absolutely great if they release quality video or VR material!
- lfam 11y ago
  The wonderful movie For All Mankind [0], from 1989, features high quality footage of the Apollo moon landings and a beautiful score by Brian Eno. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind
- Animats 11y ago
  There was better video once. The original public pictures came from pointing a broadcast TV camera at a slow-scan monitor, which is why they're so crappy. Better data was recorded at the tracking stations, directly from the downlink. Those tapes were archived. Efforts were made recently to find them. It now appears that when NASA had a shortage of 1" tape in the 1980s, the tapes were reused for Landsat imagery.[1] [1] https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/Apollo_11_TV_Tapes_Report.pdf https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/Apollo_11_TV_Tapes_Report.p...
  - kristofferR 11y ago
    You're forgetting about the other Apollo landing missions. The later ones have fantastic color video footage, remastered in full HD for episode 4 of the fantastic documentary series When We Left Earth. The whole 6 part documentary series are worth watching for anyone remotely interested in space, but here's a small sample of the quality of the moon landing video footage: https://kristofferR.com/files/moonlanding_footage_HD.mkv https://kristofferR.com/files/moonlanding_footage_HD.mkv
semi-extrinsic 11y ago
I'm not sure I agree... This [1] is from Apollo 17, and I don't think the quality is any worse than these new ones. [1] http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/AS17-134-20378HR.jpg http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/AS17-134-...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- np422 11y ago
  Hasselblads cameras was used in the Apollo missions. [1] Twelve hasselblad cameras were left behind on the moons surface. It was not that many years ago, around y2k or shortly thereafter if I remember correctly, that hasselblad finally decided that digital photography could match the picture quality their cameras achieved using traditional/analog film and started to manufacture digital options for their cameras. When I look at the pictures from the moon I start to understand why they held a stiff upper lip for so many years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasselblad#Hasselblad_cameras_in_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasselblad#Hasselblad_cameras_...
  - marincounty 11y ago
    As a photographer, I sometimes think my complete switch to digital might have been a mistake. I can't call myself a professional photohrapher because I make very little money off my pictures. That said, I wish I didn't get rid of my old cameras, and 2.8 lenses. I wish I still had my BW darkroom still set up in my closet. My pictures are all color now. They are technically fine, but my older pictures just look more interesting.
    - yakult 11y ago
      I'm a complete amateur at photography, but can you give me some details in the difference in outcomes between your BW setup and just passing your color pictures through a BW filter?
    - techolic 11y ago
sandworm101 11y ago
Is it ever practical to include full-colour cameras? If science and resolution is the priority, isn't it better to send scientific cameras with movable filters? In other words, are these pictures from a colour camera or are they, like most probe images, composites from multiple bw/g scientific images?
- roywiggins 11y ago
  You're not gaining much from a Bayer filter over three separate exposures, so you're probably right. Ordinary full-color pictures have to be demosaiced anyway, and it's more complex than laying three colored exposures on top of each other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter With three exposures you get to use the full resolution of the camera for each channel, so you end up a more detailed image and fewer artifacts... unless something moves, in which case you'll get strange colored ghosts. People hear that space images are composites, and therefore somehow conclude that they're "not real."- but all consumer digital color photography are digital composites thanks to Bayer (and Bayer-style) filters, white balance adjustment, sharpening and denoise that are all baked into your JPEGs before you see them.
  - sandworm101 11y ago
    It's hard to say what "real" is when it comes to space. The differences in contrast and brightness are so dramatic that the composites aren't anywhere near what you'd see if you were standing there looking out a window. Take the recent images from Pluto. A "real" version taken with a standard GoPro would be too dark to be worth looking at. Likewise, any image of the sun and all it's dramatic weather aren't anything like the blinding light of the "real" sun. I'm waiting for someone to compare these composite images, with their possibly different colors, to the Apollo film images. How can they both be of the same place if the sand is a different color? Get ready for some new conspiracy theories.
    - jrapdx3 11y ago
      The point you bring up is not confined to space imagery, the same considerations apply to earth-bound photography, for that matter, as true in the ancient days of film as today. Back then every photographer knew that various color films of the same type would render scenes differently. Every manufacturing process produces biases in results, the color-forming dyes at the core of color films responded in subtly distinguishable ways reflecting their explicitly unique chemical compositions. In the current digital era, vendors produce "image processing engines" that correspond to film chemistry and just as variable. Camera-makers advertise particular "color signatures" to help promote sales and brand loyalty. Relevantly, witness the endless discussion in photo "gear forums" over which rendition is the most "correct". Arguably we could say "all of the above", a case could be made one is as accurate as another since there is no single standard measurement of "accuracy". Bottom line is I wouldn't expect any given Hasselblad to produce two photos with the same color rendering when they're shot on different brands of film. Comparing the Apollo moon landscape with the Chinese digital images will inevitably show differences, but we couldn't really say which is closer to how it "really" looks.
13of40 11y ago
FWIW, a lot of the video from the first Apollo mission was low quality because they had to convert it from SSTV to NTSC by pointing a video camera at a monitor playing the live transmission. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes]
- DrScump 11y ago
  Just like Kinescope!
  - provemewrong 11y ago
    Or cam rip.
JonnieCache 11y ago
I think a lot of the unreal quality of lunar photos is the lack of atmosphere removing many of the cues our visual system uses to perceive a scene, particularly depth perception. The clarity of these new, HD pictures only exacerbates that.
mkj 11y ago
Definitely - it reminds me of the strange feeling seeing coloured "olden days" photos, things don't seem nearly as distant. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/gorskii.html https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/gorskii.html

teekert 11y ago

Yes, very unreal! It would be absolutely great if they release quality video or VR material!

lfam 11y ago
The wonderful movie For All Mankind [0], from 1989, features high quality footage of the Apollo moon landings and a beautiful score by Brian Eno. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind
Animats 11y ago
There was better video once. The original public pictures came from pointing a broadcast TV camera at a slow-scan monitor, which is why they're so crappy. Better data was recorded at the tracking stations, directly from the downlink. Those tapes were archived. Efforts were made recently to find them. It now appears that when NASA had a shortage of 1" tape in the 1980s, the tapes were reused for Landsat imagery.[1] [1] https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/Apollo_11_TV_Tapes_Report.pdf https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/Apollo_11_TV_Tapes_Report.p...
- kristofferR 11y ago
  You're forgetting about the other Apollo landing missions. The later ones have fantastic color video footage, remastered in full HD for episode 4 of the fantastic documentary series When We Left Earth. The whole 6 part documentary series are worth watching for anyone remotely interested in space, but here's a small sample of the quality of the moon landing video footage: https://kristofferR.com/files/moonlanding_footage_HD.mkv https://kristofferR.com/files/moonlanding_footage_HD.mkv

semi-extrinsic 11y ago

I'm not sure I agree... This [1] is from Apollo 17, and I don't think the quality is any worse than these new ones. [1] http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/AS17-134-20378HR.jpg http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/AS17-134-...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
np422 11y ago
Hasselblads cameras was used in the Apollo missions. [1] Twelve hasselblad cameras were left behind on the moons surface. It was not that many years ago, around y2k or shortly thereafter if I remember correctly, that hasselblad finally decided that digital photography could match the picture quality their cameras achieved using traditional/analog film and started to manufacture digital options for their cameras. When I look at the pictures from the moon I start to understand why they held a stiff upper lip for so many years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasselblad#Hasselblad_cameras_in_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasselblad#Hasselblad_cameras_...
- marincounty 11y ago
  As a photographer, I sometimes think my complete switch to digital might have been a mistake. I can't call myself a professional photohrapher because I make very little money off my pictures. That said, I wish I didn't get rid of my old cameras, and 2.8 lenses. I wish I still had my BW darkroom still set up in my closet. My pictures are all color now. They are technically fine, but my older pictures just look more interesting.
  - yakult 11y ago
    I'm a complete amateur at photography, but can you give me some details in the difference in outcomes between your BW setup and just passing your color pictures through a BW filter?
  - techolic 11y ago

sandworm101 11y ago

Is it ever practical to include full-colour cameras? If science and resolution is the priority, isn't it better to send scientific cameras with movable filters? In other words, are these pictures from a colour camera or are they, like most probe images, composites from multiple bw/g scientific images?

roywiggins 11y ago
You're not gaining much from a Bayer filter over three separate exposures, so you're probably right. Ordinary full-color pictures have to be demosaiced anyway, and it's more complex than laying three colored exposures on top of each other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter With three exposures you get to use the full resolution of the camera for each channel, so you end up a more detailed image and fewer artifacts... unless something moves, in which case you'll get strange colored ghosts. People hear that space images are composites, and therefore somehow conclude that they're "not real."- but all consumer digital color photography are digital composites thanks to Bayer (and Bayer-style) filters, white balance adjustment, sharpening and denoise that are all baked into your JPEGs before you see them.
- sandworm101 11y ago
  It's hard to say what "real" is when it comes to space. The differences in contrast and brightness are so dramatic that the composites aren't anywhere near what you'd see if you were standing there looking out a window. Take the recent images from Pluto. A "real" version taken with a standard GoPro would be too dark to be worth looking at. Likewise, any image of the sun and all it's dramatic weather aren't anything like the blinding light of the "real" sun. I'm waiting for someone to compare these composite images, with their possibly different colors, to the Apollo film images. How can they both be of the same place if the sand is a different color? Get ready for some new conspiracy theories.
  - jrapdx3 11y ago
    The point you bring up is not confined to space imagery, the same considerations apply to earth-bound photography, for that matter, as true in the ancient days of film as today. Back then every photographer knew that various color films of the same type would render scenes differently. Every manufacturing process produces biases in results, the color-forming dyes at the core of color films responded in subtly distinguishable ways reflecting their explicitly unique chemical compositions. In the current digital era, vendors produce "image processing engines" that correspond to film chemistry and just as variable. Camera-makers advertise particular "color signatures" to help promote sales and brand loyalty. Relevantly, witness the endless discussion in photo "gear forums" over which rendition is the most "correct". Arguably we could say "all of the above", a case could be made one is as accurate as another since there is no single standard measurement of "accuracy". Bottom line is I wouldn't expect any given Hasselblad to produce two photos with the same color rendering when they're shot on different brands of film. Comparing the Apollo moon landscape with the Chinese digital images will inevitably show differences, but we couldn't really say which is closer to how it "really" looks.

13of40 11y ago

FWIW, a lot of the video from the first Apollo mission was low quality because they had to convert it from SSTV to NTSC by pointing a video camera at a monitor playing the live transmission. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes]

DrScump 11y ago
Just like Kinescope!
- provemewrong 11y ago
  Or cam rip.

JonnieCache 11y ago

I think a lot of the unreal quality of lunar photos is the lack of atmosphere removing many of the cues our visual system uses to perceive a scene, particularly depth perception. The clarity of these new, HD pictures only exacerbates that.

mkj 11y ago

Definitely - it reminds me of the strange feeling seeing coloured "olden days" photos, things don't seem nearly as distant. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/gorskii.html https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/gorskii.html