http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/30/china-just-released-true-color-hd-photos-of-the-moon/

This month, the China National Space Administration released all of the images from their recent moon landing to the public. There are now hundreds and hundreds of never-before-seen true color, high definition photos of the lunar surface available for download.

The images were taken a few years ago by cameras on the Chang’e 3 lander and Yutu rover. In December of 2013, China joined the ranks of Russia and the United States when they successfully soft-landed on the lunar surface, becoming the third country ever to accomplish this feat.

What made China’s mission especially remarkable was that it was the first soft-landing on the moon in 37 years, since the Russians landed their Luna 24 probe back in 1976.

Today, anyone can create a user account on China’s Science and Application Center for Moon and Deepspace Exploration website to download the pictures themselves. The process is a bit cumbersome and the connection to the website is spotty if you’re accessing it outside of China.

Luckily, Emily Lakdawalla from the Planetary Society spent the last week navigating the Chinese database and is currently hosting a suite of China’s lunar images on the Planetary Society Website.

Cheesy

Given this is true colour, it does look quite brown.

I wonder just how “true” the colour is. The second one grades steadily from grey towards brown going right to left.
?

There is a lot of yellow-ochre in some of these images. Nice colour but maybe not very convincing.

Ian said:

I wonder just how “true” the colour is. The second one grades steadily from grey towards brown going right to left.
?

There’s a bit of lens flare in both of those shots which could cause that effect.

pommiejohn said:

Ian said:

I wonder just how “true” the colour is. The second one grades steadily from grey towards brown going right to left.
?

There’s a bit of lens flare in both of those shots which could cause that effect.

Correction: Lens flare in the top one, the second has a strange flare like appearance to the right of shot but it’s not shot into the light so it might not be flare,

Trouble with “true colour” on the Moon is that the lack of atmosphere makes every object appear either pitch black or blindingly white, usually a mix of both. That means that contrast has to be turned way way down before publication, and this can affect the resulting colour balance.

Other blogs by same person at planetary society.
Space exploration past and future timeline

Which of these is the true colour of Earth?
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/12291508-two-epic-photos-of-earth.html

Oldest surviving photo of the moon, 1849. Nine exposures.

http://www.almanac.com/content/oldest-moon-photo

Bubblecar said:

Oldest surviving photo of the moon, 1849. Nine exposures.

!http://www.almanac.com/sites/default/files/styles/primary_image_in_article/public/images/oldestmoonphoto.jpg?itok=intGE7Pa

http://www.almanac.com/content/oldest-moon-photo

Looks like the oldset window too.

mollwollfumble said:

Other blogs by same person at planetary society.

EL is great

mollwollfumble said:

Trouble with “true colour” on the Moon is that the lack of atmosphere makes every object appear either pitch black or blindingly white, usually a mix of both. That means that contrast has to be turned way way down before publication, and this can affect the resulting colour balance.

I was thinking along similar lines. (Contrast and brightness by the look of these)

I was wondering about the film stock used and how good the white balance was. Online references refer to special emulsions but don’t go into detail.

WrT to the change from left to right, I think it may be due to the fact that the right hand side is antisolar: away from that, you see some darkening due to grain shadow.