January 22, 2018

Pictures of Jupiter.


NASA / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstädt / Seán Doran © CC NC SA

More here.

Via CNN ("[T]wo citizen scientists, Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran, have enhanced the images by manipulating the color and contrast... encouraged by NASA's JunoCam project...").

27 comments:

wild chicken said...

I'd like to see without the enhancement. Maybe not so fabulous?

Ann Althouse said...

@wild chicken

Check out the JunoCam project. You can get to the originals and enhance them yourself to the level of detail and color you would like to see. These photographers are not trying to trick you or anything.

BarrySanders20 said...

I watched Loving Vincent this weekend. This image is a bit like Van Gogh.

Fernandinande said...

"Tone mapping".

Kevin said...

I'm sure this is some kind of pollution which requires taxing and shaming the Jupiterians into more acceptable behaviors.

I'm also sure they're being told that other civilizations are likely to be far more advanced and they need to straighten up their act lest they be looked down on as the truly uncivilized unnioks of the galaxy.

Also, their leaders dress in all black to demonstrate their moral superiority.

Don't ask me how I know these things.

MacMacConnell said...

It was my understanding that our explorer sats don't do color imaging. So when you see color images of planets it's just a NASA employee's imagination.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Looks like my duodenum.

mockturtle said...

Would this be Jupiter the planet or Jupiter the god? It certainly looks formidable.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Pictures of Jupiter....or..... a Vincent van Gogh painting. You pick.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Mac McConnell said...

It was my understanding that our explorer sats don't do color imaging. So when you see color images of planets it's just a NASA employee's imagination.

Your understanding is wrong. What they have is a camera* that senses illumination levels. If used alone, it gives a greyscale image. However, it also has filters: put the green filter in front, and you get the amount of illumination in the green range, put red filter in front, and you get the illumination in the red range, same for blue, and maybe UV and IR. Combine the red, green, and blue, and you have a color image.

Of course, many of the images that you see are false-color: they might map IR light to one of the visible colors, and otherwise shift or exaggerate colors in order to make interesting features stand out.

Note that your digital camera already does something similar: its sensor only detects illumination level. In front of the sensor is a filter such that half the pixels have a green filter, and one quarter have each of red or blue. Your camera combines them into a color image.

*Likely they have multiple cameras, designed for different ranges: visible, IR, UV.

Ficta said...

JunoCam is a very cool experiment. It's basically "along for the ride" since Juno is a spinning "particles and fields" mission. It's run by students, the public votes on what to take pictures of, and the raw data is made available to the amateur image processing community to "develop". The images are actual color images, there are color filters bonded to the CCD. There's a lot of reconstruction required even to get to the raw images since the camera has to capture the photos as the spacecraft spins. Much more info here if you're interested.

Rusty said...

Greco-esque.

YoungHegelian said...

So, Jupiter is God's ginormous lava lamp. That must mean that God's a stoner.

Dude, that explains so much!

Fritz said...

Your understanding is wrong. What they have is a camera* that senses illumination levels. If used alone, it gives a greyscale image. However, it also has filters: put the green filter in front, and you get the amount of illumination in the green range, put red filter in front, and you get the illumination in the red range, same for blue, and maybe UV and IR. Combine the red, green, and blue, and you have a color image.

Our eyes do something similar. The retina has separate cones that respond to red, yellow, and blue (well, not exactly but close enough). Our brains combine the information into continuous colors. However, cones are susceptible to fatigue, and become less sensitive over time with continuous exposure. Our eyes don't really provide objective views, they provide a useful view. A few people have 4 kinds of cones, and the rest of us can't understand what they see.

Not to mention cataracts filtering and scattering blue light to make the world seem more yellow.

MacMacConnell said...

Ignorance is Bliss
Thanks for the information.

MacMacConnell said...

"Not to mention cataracts filtering and scattering blue light to make the world seem more yellow."

Getting hit hard in the head with a 2x4 will do the same thing.

Nonapod said...

It's crazy to think that some of those eddies are so massive that they could literally swallow up the Earth.

Jupiter said...

mockturtle said...
"Would this be Jupiter the planet or Jupiter the god? It certainly looks formidable."

Both.

Michael McNeil said...

One might note that the days of the week are named after the planets (as the ancients understood them) not gods. The planet Jupiter’s day is Thursday.

Wince said...

"Pictures of Jupiter."

Like "Pictures of Lily", after.

wholelottasplainin said...

One of the biggest disappointments in observing with a backyard telescope is seeing celestial objects without all that "enhancement" or different bandwidths of radiation color-coded into brilliant hues.

In reality, almost every thing except for the planets appear as varying shades of white and grey... fifty shades maybe.

Darrell said...

Perfect location for the LOTR reboot.

Fernandinande said...

that shit is boring

Clyde said...

So does everyone else see the face of the green-eyed blue man with the wild silver hair and goatee?

Jupiter said...

"The planet Jupiter’s day is Thursday".

From Norse Thor's Day.

In Spanish, Jueves. From Jove.

Helenhightops said...

This picture you have at the top looks like a William Blake engraving.

Helenhightops said...
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