Starship Asterisk*

Moon in Inverted Colors

Explanation: Which moon is this? It's Earth's moon -- but in inverted colors. Here, the pixel values corresponding to light and dark areas have been translated in reverse, or inverted, producing a false-color representation reminiscent of a black and white photographic negative. However, this is an inverted color image -- where the muted colors of the moon are real but digitally exaggerated before inversion. Normally bright rays from the large crater Tycho dominate the southern (bottom) features as easily followed dark green lines emanating from the 85-kilometer diameter impact site. Normally dark lunar mare appear light and silvery. The image was acquired in Southend-on-Sea, England, UK. Historically, astronomical images recorded on photographic plates were directly examined on inverted-color negatives because it helped the eye pick out faint details.

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Very nice. The yellow tint on the maria I guess is Earthshine.

Let's compare the "true color" and the "inverted color" Moons!


As you can see, the Lady in the Moon has two big curls or buns of hair near her forehead. The one farthest to the left is reddish in (more or less) true color, while the one farthest to the right is bluish in (more or less) true color. The colors are switched in the inverted color image.

As you can see in the true color image, there is a lot of reddish and orange color on the Moon. In the inverted image, the reddish and orange parts look greenish or bluish.

Of course light-colored areas are dark in the inverted image, and vice versa.

I'd say that the Moon is darker in color overall than you can see in the "true color image".

Ann

Very interesting, but why?
I'm old enough to remember photo negatives! You used to get them
with your prints when you had a film developed! You needed them to
get duplicates!

daddyo wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 6:38 am Very nice. The yellow tint on the maria I guess is Earthshine.

The darkest areas of the Moon, during a full Moon, are much brighter than Earthshine. It isn't contributing anything significant to this image.

As I was scrolling down to see the description, I was thinking, "What have they done to the Moon? The colors look all wrong." Then, I read "inverted-color negative" and it was all clear.

I've never seen the Moon this way. It's really interesting. It almost gives the maria a metallic look.

With reference to today's caption, please note that the word mare is singular. The plural is maria.

John

Another lovely image that shows how one can change the lighting and help the eye see different features!

I'm reminded of the "Terminator Moon" image used for February 15's APOD, with this one begin very different. Today's image looks a lot like an etched-glass globe to me. Whereas the 2022-02-15 APOD showed beautiful craters and mostly lost the rays of impacts, today's image shows the rays emphatically. In that prior discussion, @johnnydeep pointed out that the Terminator Moon image had a very smooth edge. For today's APOD, I would say that you can clearly see the bumpiness of the edge, especially on the right.

MarkBour wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 7:10 pm Another lovely image that shows how one can change the lighting and help the eye see different features!

I'm reminded of the "Terminator Moon" image used for February 15's APOD, with this one begin very different. Today's image looks a lot like an etched-glass globe to me. Whereas the 2022-02-15 APOD showed beautiful craters and mostly lost the rays of impacts, today's image shows the rays emphatically. In that prior discussion, @johnnydeep pointed out that the Terminator Moon image had a very smooth edge. For today's APOD, I would say that you can clearly see the bumpiness of the edge, especially on the right.

Indeed. The dark bumps on the white background are especially visible!

Now it looks like Ganymede.