Color Images from Mars Rovers

by Bob Webster

Thanks to Bob Webster for making these images available. They arerecombinations of images with different colored filters. All images arecourtesy of NASA/JPL and in the public domain in the United States.

Mars Attacks!

I was browsing the NASA web site for photos from the Mars rovers, but most ofthem are black and white. Then I noticed they have the raw images posted thatcan be combined into color photos, so I combined a bunch of them into "livingcolor." Here they are:

The color is not perfect on these, but it should be in the neighborhood. Thereare a lot of variables. The cameras are calibrated differently from time totime, there are different bandwidths available in different images, and the sunis at different angles.

In these photos, 3 to 6 images were taken, one after another, using differentbandwidth filters. There may be 5 minutes pass from the first to the lastimage, so a shadow may move a little bit during that time. An interestingeffect of this is an occasional rainbow strip on the edge of shadows.

The image file names include information such as camera type, time taken,location, etc. Here is the full info:

http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/edr_filename_key.html

The image on this site have the filter and sometimes the Left or Rightdesignator removed. If L or R is missing, then they were taken with the Leftcamera, which uses visible light filters.

These images were taken with the panoramic camera, because it's the one thatuses color filters. The filters used vary from image to image. The availablefilters are:

Some bandwidths of visible light are: