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Colors of the Moon
When you observe some features on the Moon through a telescope, you can see some tiny differences in the hues of the various greys of the surface. There are many different geological formations composed of different minerals on the Moon, so there must be a difference, even though very subtle to our eyes, in the color. But to a digital color camera, it is an easy task to record color information with good accuracy.
Once a good color image is recorded, the subtle colors can be enhanced afterwords using digital processing, in order to allow us to see the colors of the Moon too! These differences in color show hidden features and reveal the chemestry and geologic history of the Moon itself. Yet many times astrophotographers desaturate their Moon images without knowing they are throwing away precious and almost invisible information about our Moon.
Details on how to process the Moon's features and mineral details revealed through color enhancement can be found here:
http://www.atalaia.org/filipe/moon/colorofthemoon.htm
Photo details: Canon EOS 300D, Astronomy Technologies AT80ED APO 80mm refractor. 10 x 1/1600s exposures at ISO 200, manually stacked in Photoshop CS.
Color enhancement performed using "Capturing the Colors of the Moon", Sky and Telescope, July 2005.
Watauga Skies Observatory
Location: Watuaga, Texas
Full Moon captured
November 2, 2009
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