Moon Colours
as photographed with a Nikon Coolpix digital camera.

Digital photographs by John Wattie

 


Clementine satellite spectral analysis suggests the predominant colour on the moon is brown.

My Nikon Coolpix images show other colours besides brown, but I am never sure how much is due to chromatic aberration in the optical system. There is also a colour cast caused by changes in density. The moderately dark parts of my moon pictures tend to a slight brown cast, which I assume is imperfect colour reproduction in the CCD.

However, even Clementine images show more than just brown colours, as on this image of the Apollo16 landing site. 

(Reduced size from the original 64 colour GIF on the Clementine web site, said to be true colour after combining three filtered colours. I assume the method was validated on earth before satellite launch).

 

 

 

Copernicus

Here the moon has been flipped, as seen from the Southern Hemisphere in a telescope fitted with a star diagonal.

Rays around craters are dim when the light is oblique (as here). Rays reflect light straight back and show up when the sun is shining from directly behind us, which happens at  full moon. The rays are made of  glassy beads. They are rather like the reflecting beads used on road signs, which are  designed to reflect straight back to show up in car headlights.
 

 

Colours seen on different nights are different, which means they are not reliable at all.

John Wattie photography.
24 March 2002, 
0220 hrs. NZST.

 

EAST

 The moon is not flipped, as might be seen in powerful binoculars from New Zealand (but actually photographed through a small telescope).

Some of these colours from a Nikon Coolpix image are clearly false, due to chromatic aberration. 

e.g. Bright parts of crater rims are blue.  

False colours are produced in the telescope and can flicker when viewed through the earth's turbulent atmosphere. 

 Many reported "Transient Lunar Phenomena" are said to be caused by this aberration.

 

 

It is usual to give up in despair and convert all colour images of the moon to grey. 

Arguments against this include: 

  1. even if the colours are false the result is pretty and
  2. differences in lava flows on the maria show up better in colour.
  3. Who cares, amateurs are in the game for fun!

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