by Anthony Ayiomamitis
The moon is invariably characterized as a colorless object whose features fall into one of the countless shades of black and white. Nevertheless, there are reports from Apollo mission astronauts as well as ground-based observers of color being noted, thus reinforcing the rich and geologically diverse nature of the lunar surface.
Although the modus operandi for astrophotographers is to also pursue the imaging of the moon in grayscale, thus implicitly reinforcing the notion that the moon is a monochrome celestial object, the image above indicates the injustice and loss of science that may occur when discarding RGB information for grayscale. To be more specific, careful inspection of lunar images indicate subtle colouration which can be enhanced using digital processing techniques to reveal characteristics surrounding the geological composition of the lunar surface. Using the image above, areas which are blue are associated with high titatium content whereas the converse is true for areas which are orange and rich in aluminum and iron. Titanium is of significance since it has a tendency to bind with available oxygen, thus allowing for the possibility that future habitation of the moon would involve mining and processing this available supply of oxygen for survival.
The Galileo spacecraft has taken various false colour images of the lunar surface and which resemble the image above. For example, see http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/planetary/moon/gal_moon_false3.jpg .
Technical Details:
Date: Apr 03, 2007 01:53:00 UT+3
Location: Athens, Greece (38.2997° N, 23.7430° E)
Equipment: AP 160 f/7.5 StarFire EDF, AP 1200GTO GEM, Canon EOS 300d
Exposure: 1/200 sec, ISO 100, RAW Image Format, 3072x2048 Image Size, Manual Mode
Further Details: http://www.perseus.gr/Astro-Lunar-Scenes-False-Colour.htm