by Chris Peterson » Sat Dec 24, 2011 11:58 pm
Wolk Kotenberg wrote:I think APOD is testing reader's observational skills. What does the original image look like colorwise ?
I took images from about the same place, at the same time. While today's APOD is very lovely, the actual event did NOT look like that. By this time, the sky was light enough that it was getting fairly hard to see the most eclipsed part of the Moon at all, and its color was only showing a hint of red. Indeed, seeing any color really required using binoculars. The slight alpenglow was definitely brighter and redder than the eclipsed Moon.
The images I posted at
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 35#p164407 are minimally processed, and reflect pretty accurately the visual appearance of the eclipse. Note in particular that things were much less saturated than today's APOD would suggest.
Ths particular shot was taken just three minutes earlier before sunrise than the APOD. This is almost identical to the visual appearance of the scene (also looking at the Moon setting over the Continental Divide, less than 30 miles from the location of today's image). This image was taken without using HDR, which part of why it gives a more accurate visual representation of the eclipse at that moment.
Of course, what is most accurate visually isn't always the most photogenic, and there is no requirement that an astronomical image faithfully reproduce what the eye sees... even in those rare cases (like today) when that is even possible.
[quote="Wolk Kotenberg"]I think APOD is testing reader's observational skills. What does the original image look like colorwise ?[/quote]
I took images from about the same place, at the same time. While today's APOD is very lovely, the actual event did NOT look like that. By this time, the sky was light enough that it was getting fairly hard to see the most eclipsed part of the Moon at all, and its color was only showing a hint of red. Indeed, seeing any color really required using binoculars. The slight alpenglow was definitely brighter and redder than the eclipsed Moon.
The images I posted at http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=26135#p164407 are minimally processed, and reflect pretty accurately the visual appearance of the eclipse. Note in particular that things were much less saturated than today's APOD would suggest.
[float=left][img2]http://www.cloudbait.com/gallery/planets/15906_1352.jpg[/img2][/float]Ths particular shot was taken just three minutes earlier before sunrise than the APOD. This is almost identical to the visual appearance of the scene (also looking at the Moon setting over the Continental Divide, less than 30 miles from the location of today's image). This image was taken without using HDR, which part of why it gives a more accurate visual representation of the eclipse at that moment.
Of course, what is most accurate visually isn't always the most photogenic, and there is no requirement that an astronomical image faithfully reproduce what the eye sees... even in those rare cases (like today) when that is even possible.