Coloured Moon - Strange....

[JohnP]

Hi All,

I saw some pictures of the eclipse on UKAI forum where the person had colour (blue & brown on the moon) - I questioned how he had did it & basically he said all you do is keep increasing colour saturation in small steps. I tried it on one of my recent eclipse photo's & wow! it does actually work.

Can anyone explain what the colours are - I presume it must be a true representation of the colours of the features on the moon - the colour info is obviously there in the image - it just needs gentle saturating to bring it out.

Perhaps one of our resident moon experts can explain for me.. I guess it will work with any image of the moon & not just an eclipsed moon.

John.

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi,

The moon does actually have colours but they are not brilliant and the actual moon with see with our eyeballs in mainly dominated with luminance, what paul was talking about.  The Saturation in PS actually enhances what IS there and does not add to it.  So thats a smashing image, makes you want to be a moonie again.

Chris

[Whitters]

Hi John,
The colours are caused by the different mineral deposits on the moon. There is an article in S&T somewhere I will try to dig it out.

[TonyB]

Have a look at this site http://ncarboni.home.att.net/Astrophotography.html
it is the superb resolution picture that Mike put me onto some time ago and I have read that the colours do, in fact, reflect the surface mineral composition. Hope I'm right! The colours look the same as on the picture posted.

Tony B