What colour is Mars?
A Practical Guide to improving your Mars imagery.
By Damian Peach.
Mars from the Rosetta Spacecraft on Feb 24th 2007. This true colour view is probably very close to the actual colour of a dust free Mars. Courtesy ESA.
Just what colour is Mars? The
simple answer seems Red since it is so well known as the Red Planet. Both
Amateur and Professional results constantly portray a Martian disk of different
colour. Some show a weakly coloured pink globe while others show a rusty
coloured surface. What causes these variations, and more specifically what are
the causes and effects of popular amateur techniques in imaging the “Red
Planet”.
Fig 01. The varying colours of Mars portrayed in modern imagery. But which is closest to the truth? Images courtesy David Tyler & STScI.
Through the eyepiece of a large
telescope, to my eye Mars (when the Martian atmosphere is free of dust) has a
rusty orange coloured surface similar to what the famous ground based imagery of
the rovers show, but few amateur or professional images seem to portray well
this colour, or indeed accurate colours/contrasts of the Planet in general. In
this guide I will try to provide a more accurate and thoughtful approach to
rendering Mars “closer to the truth” and hopefully provide others with the
motivation to try different techniques to render a more accurate picture of the
R ed Planet.
Popular techniques
for amateur imaging
There
are various well known techniques for producing colour Mars images employed by
today’s amateurs. Here is a brief
rundown of them.
RGB:
Taking separate images through Red, Green and Blue filters and combing those
three images into a colour image.
R(G)B:
Taking a Red and Blue image and “synthesising” the Green image by averaging
the Red and Blue images,
IR(G)B:
Taking an IR and Blue image and “synthesising” the Green image from the two.
RRGB
or RR(G)B: Using a normal RGB or R(G)B image and then replacing the luminance
data with a more highly contrasted Red light image.
The above listed techniques are at present the most popular approaches to imaging Mars with amateur equipment. All yield rather different looking images as you can see in this comparison set below:
Fig
02. Three of the four primary techniques used in imaging Mars illustrated. Note
the starkly different colours and contrasts
produced. IR (G) B produces a similar result to R(G)B but with more contrasted
albedo markings. D. Peach.
The R(G)B technique for producing
Mars images is very popular and indeed I have used this method myself for many
of my own images. But how accurate is this in rendering the true colour of Mars?
Some may say that since there is no green coloured areas on Mars taking a true G
filter image is rather a waste of time, and just creates even more processing
work. But when we carefully examine a true RGB image and an R(G)B image of Mars
we can see that they do not look the same. Tones of colour shading rendered in
the true RGB image are missing from the R(G)B image.
Fig 03. True RGB vs RGB. Notice the colour tones rendered in the true RGB image that are missing from the R(G)B image particularly the brick red colour area around the North Polar Hood. Also notice the differences from the true G image to a synthetic G image. D. Peach.
IR(G)B
and Red Luminance RRGB.
A
very popular approach with today’s amateurs is using the well contrasted Red
filtered image to use as luminance data in a colour image to give a better
contrasted colour view of Mars. But how accurate is this technique, and what are
the pitfalls?
Firstly
lets remember something very important – Mars has an Atmosphere! By
using Red or worse IR filtered imagery as luminance data for a colour image
produces a completely false picture of both the colours and contrasts of disk.
The Human Brain loves contrast, and it’s very easy to fall into this trap and
forgetting Mars does not really look like the images are portraying. If we look
at this comparison below the differences are very apparent indeed:
Fig 04. Red Luminance
RGB (Bottom Right) vs True RGB vs R(G)B (Top and Bottom Left.) We can clearly
see that the contrasts and colours portrayed in the Red Luminance RGB are
completely false. Mars has become pink, and the albedo markings have become much
to contrasted. Also note the loss of cloud details due to using the Red
Luminance. Images HST 2001.
RRGB
and IR(G)B have become popular primarily through a trend of many people using
this method to overcome inadequate seeing. While it does produce a well (and
perhaps over) contrasted view of Mars the colour and atmospheric details have
been lost to a large degree. The difference with true RGB and also R(G)B is
stark, and to my eye using a Red/IR luminance does not produce a pleasing image
neither from an aesthetic viewpoint or a scientific one.
All
techniques compared.
Here
we compare all of the above techniques, but first lets just take a look at each
separate colour filtered image and comment on what is being recorded:
Fig 05. Red,
Green and Blue images of Mars. D. Peach.
Red
Light:
Penetrates the Martian atmosphere observing the surface. Records the dark
surface albedo markings of Mars in good contrast. Also reveals active dust
clouds with excellent contrast. Least affected wavelength from atmospheric
seeing meaning its often possible to obtain good images. Most interesting
wavelength to use simply due to there being lots of well contrasted detail (dust
storm permitting!)
Green
Light:
Shows both the surface albedo markings and atmospheric features such as clouds.
Note the albedo markings can often have different shapes in this wavelength
compared to Red Light due to it penetrating less to the surface than Red.
Important for accurately rendering the colours of a colour image to the highest
accuracy. Also important for rendering accurate colour of active dust events
(which usually appear distinctly yellow.)
Blue
Light:
Shows the atmospheric features of Mars most clearly. Clouds and hazes are
very apparent while the surface albedo features are largely suppressed. Hard to
obtain images of very good quality in this filter due to atmospheric scattering
and atmospheric seeing.
When
we look at each image individually its clear that each filter has an important
role to play. Here are more detailed comments on the popular techniques
described above with the pros and con’s highlighted:
RGB:
Straight Red, Green, Blue imaging. Produces the most accurate rendition of
colour tones and contrasts in the final colour image. Harder to balance the
colours accurately if you lack experience. More time consuming than R(G)B and
more processing work. Also doesn’t seem to work so well in poorer seeing due
to Green being affected by atmospheric seeing.
R(G)B:
Synthetic Green generated from Red/Blue average. Produces pleasing colour images
and is perhaps the second best technique to employ. Less time consuming than RGB
and is easier to achieve a pleasing colour balance. However is less accurate
than RGB in rendering the true colour of Mars, and certain colour tones and
shading are completely lost.
IR
(G) B: Same as R(G)B but IR image used
instead to generate synthetic G image. Produces a good colour image though the
contrasts of the albedo markings are exaggerated and it is also quite difficult
to produce a reasonably accurate colour balance. Increased exposure time with IR
meaning slower frame rates or noisier images, especially with smaller apertures.
RRGB
or IRRGB: Red or IR image is employed as
the luminance data. Albedo contrasts are greatly exaggerated in the colour
image. Impossible to achieve an accurate colour balance. Atmospheric information
from the Blue image is greatly subdued and lost in places. No real benefit to
using this technique other than to easily produce a well contrasted colour image
in poor seeing, or an over contrasted colour image in good seeing.
Fig 06. Green images compared from true G, Synthetic G from R/B and G channel from RRGB. Note how the dark albedo markings become more apparent when using synthetic G, and extremely apparent in the RRGB green channel. Its clear here that true G does contribute toward the Martian colour. HST imagery 2001.
So
which technique is the best one to use?
Under
ideal circumstances of good seeing and transparency the true RGB approach is
really the winner. It undoubtedly produces the most accurate colour rendition of
the Planet and also produces an accurate balance between albedo detail and
atmospheric detail. In poorer seeing the R(G)B approach seems better simply
because the G image can be badly affected which can be frustrating especially if
you’ve managed to secure a quite good red light image. Its also not much fun
processing lots of poor sequences, so more from a practical standpoint I prefer
the R(G)B approach in this respect. The Red Luminance approach however I
recommend avoiding. It simply does not re-produce an accurate picture of the
Martian disk, and using this technique in bad seeing will not help since the
colour is impossibly skewed away from the truth. At least with R(G)B we can come
reasonably close to reality. The Red/IR luminance technique has undoubtedly
become so popular simply because all of the “exciting” small scale detail
lies in the red image and we often want it to show through in the colour image
as much as possible, but this simply is not doing Mars justice and atmospheric
details are sacrificed in exchange for more contrasted albedo details.
Fig 07. Image of Mars taken using a Lumenera SKYnyx colour camera with IR blocking filter installed. D. Peach.
When
using colour cameras its important to use an IR blocking filter to stop the
image being “polluted” with to much Red/IR signal. Colour cameras when used
with IR blocking filters can produce very pleasing results and are probably more
accurate in their rendition of Mars than R(G)B imaging.
Mars
is a rather more colourful world than one may think. The rusty desert areas
often contain regions of varying colour and albedo, and the only way this can be
accurately portrayed is through true RGB imaging. It may seem more work and one
may argue that the R(G)B result is close enough, but to produce the true ruddy
colour Mars with an accurate balance between albedo/atmosphere that is often
apparent at the eyepiece one must use the true RGB technique.
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