Has the Dawn spacecraft taken color images of Ceres?

[sedativechunk]

Hello KSP community,

What better place to ask this question! If you guys keep up with space news, NASA's space craft "DAWN" has been entering orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres this past month.

I am slightly confused by the images it is releasing. This is Ceres per some Hubble color images taken years ago below. As you can see, the moon as a white/orange hue with a blue rim. Yet, all the images from DAWN so far has been grayscale. I wanted to ask (if anyone even knows), does DAWN even have true-color cameras equipped? Better yet - is Ceres really "gray" or is it more like this spooky colored Hubble image? I want to see accurate color images, and if it hasn't taken any I can only speculate that either it isn't going to take color images (which is stupid IMO to spend millions on such a mission and not attach a color-capable camera) or Ceresa is really just a boring, gray rock and the Hubble image is in accurate for whatever reason.

[UmbralRaptor]

Scientific cameras typically have CCDs that work over a large range of wavelengths with a filter wheel to get the various narrow pass-bands of interest. This is generally understood to get more 'colors' and resolution for less mass than any other method.

Dawn's framing camera is a 1024x1024 CCD with a filter wheel with 7 narrow band and 1 broad band filter(s). I am unsure of exactly why those colors were chosen, but then my geology/mineralogy background is pretty limited.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/spacecraft/instruments.html

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/science_payload.asp

It's not clear to me what bands the current Dawn images are in (presumably the clear filter?). "True colors" tend to be harder to determine than one would expect. Mars is somewhat infamous for this. I expect that any color images will be like those of Mercury or the highly stretched ones of the Moon -- more for mineral detection than what a person would see. Getting what a person would see out a spacecraft window is a pain in the donkey when your camera sees different bands than the human eye, and white balance can be endlessly annoying to get right.

Edited March 5, 2015 by UmbralRaptor

[lajoswinkler]

Dawn should be able to take true color images because it has a lot more filters than usual space probes do (usually it's UV, green, NIR; or similar). If anything, photos of Ceres should be a lot more realistic than photos made by Voyager 1 and 2.

Why we get grayscale images is beyond my understanding and if NASA fails to release true color photos, it will be a great failure of their PR department. For god's sake, even amateurs take the raw data and produce more realistic stuff than NASA probably ever released.

[Nibb31]

The limiting factor on these probes is bandwidth. They pretty much all have to go through NASA's Deep Space Network, which is a series of radiotelescopes around the World that are tuned to communicate with deep space probes. Of course, due to the rotation of the Earth and other alignment factors, any single antenna can only point at a specific location in the sky for a short window every day. The DSN antennas are also used for radioastronomy so they have to be shared with other science institutions. Therefore, DSN usage is determined by the allocation of time slots for each project, including Dawn, New Horizons, but also all the stuff on Mars and even Voyager and Pionneer. Each mission gets allocated time slots depending on their priority, requirements, and budget, and they have to struggle to get their data through the DSN at the moment the DSN antennas are pointed at their probe.

Science missions are not for PR. Missions like these are pushing the limits of technology, and the teams always assume that they might lose the probe at any time. Therefore the science data has the highest priority, and "pretty pictures" are reserved for when there is extra bandwidth and the primary objectives have been met. And of course, data rates are low due to the distance. We will definitely get some nice color pictures, but they will come later, after the important data has been received and processed.

Edited March 5, 2015 by Nibb31

[vger]

Science missions are not for PR. Missions like these are pushing the limits of technology, and the teams always assume that they might lose the probe at any time. Therefore the science data has the highest priority, and "pretty pictures" are reserved for when there is extra bandwidth and the primary objectives have been met. We will definitely get some nice color pictures, but they will come later, after the important data has been received and processed.

I agree with the "why" on this, but to simply say, "Science missions are not for PR" is a brilliant way to see your funding run out.

The people who are already interested in science will take notice of the less-spectacular, more technical data that comes out of space missions. But if you want to get the rest of the population to so much as bat an eye, you need those epic moments that everybody can understand.

Edited March 5, 2015 by vger

[Newt]

Well, I think we also have to realize a couple of things. Sure, NASA needs its PR, there is no question about that, but is there that much that quickly releasing many colour images are going to do for them? It may be the case that more people are excited by colour images, but black and white ones are better than just releasing scientific papers and technical reports. Colour images will come, certainly, but I think that already there is plenty as far as visually appealing PR work done by NASA to further interest in this and other missions.

[vger]

Well, I think we also have to realize a couple of things. Sure, NASA needs its PR, there is no question about that, but is there that much that quickly releasing many colour images are going to do for them? It may be the case that more people are excited by colour images, but black and white ones are better than just releasing scientific papers and technical reports. Colour images will come, certainly, but I think that already there is plenty as far as visually appealing PR work done by NASA to further interest in this and other missions.

It doesn't need to be an insane overload of material, but every mission deserves its "money shot."

As one example, maybe Rosetta has had that already, but I'm still holding out for a little hope that something more spectacular will come when the comet reaches periapsis. More light available, and perhaps a brighter coma. Good enough for a solid color photo? Time will tell.

[daniel l.]

Dont be too expectant of seeing what the dwarf planet looks like until we actually go their on a manned mission, The government tends to take the best stuff and hide it away it it's secret locker known as Area 51, I have heard of inventors who made something extremely advanced but were robbed at gunpoint by the government.

[Camacha]

I have heard of inventors who made something extremely advanced but were robbed at gunpoint by the government.

I have heard of magical rainbow creatures that vomit gold, but I am not too sure that has any consequences for the real world.

[Newt]

It doesn't need to be an insane overload of material, but every mission deserves its "money shot.".

If that is all that this is about, there definitely is plenty of time for Dawn to take and prepare some color images. Currently, the vehicle is not even in orbit, so just give them all some time.

[UmbralRaptor]

If that is all that this is about, there definitely is plenty of time for Dawn to take and prepare some color images. Currently, the vehicle is not even in orbit, so just give them all some time.

And then there's how hard it is/was to get images of 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko from the good cameras. (Chances are you've seen navcam ones, but nothing from OSIRIS!)

[basic.syntax]

What Dawn did at Vesta (link) provides the best "picture" of what to expect at Ceres: they are mainly interested in using color filters to make different surface materials stand out.

[Nibb31]

"Science missions are not for PR" is a brilliant way to see your funding run out.

JPL, the lab that coordinates the Dawn mission, isn't in the entertainment business. Their funding depends on NASA, which depends on the Administration, which depends on Congress. The general public's influence is negligible. The criteria for attributing funding is generally how much money trickles down into the national aerospace industry and how much science will be extracted from the mission. The science community doesn't care much for pretty pictures (they typically loath PR and teams that go overboard with PR lose credibility). What they do care about is publication of science papers.

[lajoswinkler]

JPL, the lab that coordinates the Dawn mission, isn't in the entertainment business. Their funding depends on NASA, which depends on the Administration, which depends on Congress. The general public's influence is negligible. The criteria for attributing funding is generally how much money trickles down into the national aerospace industry and how much science will be extracted from the mission. The science community doesn't care much for pretty pictures (they typically loath PR and teams that go overboard with PR lose credibility). What they do care about is publication of science papers.

NHF, but this is truly ignorant of you. Public perception is not negligible. In fact, it's the main factor, but it works indirectly. Also, you're describing planetary scientists as robots who don't share interest in seeing what does their target look like. You're really failed with this.

You're talking about bandwidths and this has nothing to do with it. It's not the probe that makes the image. The probe takes photos in different wavelengths and sends them to Earth as part of its normal operation. All that NASA needs to do is to use that data to assemble a true color image and if they don't want to do that, there are people who will do it for free.

It is a disinformation that this is a waste of resources.

This constant trashing of PR basics is one of the things that ruins NASA and has the potential to create destruction of longterm scientific plans. Humanity doesn't need more of that, and USA certainly doesn't, being all shaky already.

[Blue giant]

The public interest is directly related to the amount of funding congress can justify for these missions. The scientists totally fail to realise this as funding continues to decrease due to lack of interest. They managed to put video cameras on the apollo missions and had the whole world in awe. Now they land probes on Mars, titan, and a comet and don't even think that a video camera is any use. It is the closest thing to actually being there and seeing something truely amazing with your own eyes. Putting actual HD broadcast quality videos of the surface of alien planets on pay per view would make them millions. Funding problems for future missions solved.

[Vanamonde]

Apollo had vid cameras because there was motion to record. In an environment where nothing moves, still cameras are just as useful, but simpler and more reliable.

[Blue giant]

Just think about the incredible images from the full colour HD video cameras on the iss as it orbits the earth, then imagine the same on a spacecraft orbiting Ceres, Mars, a comet, Jupitor, Saturn etc. Not only would it look spectacular, but a lot can be learned from close up observation of the movement of the atmospheres of these celestial bodies. Who knows what unexpected things we might see. For instance, there could be geological or atmospheric dynamic activity which would not be apparent in a simple black and white still image.

[vger]

Just think about the incredible images from the full colour HD video cameras on the iss as it orbits the earth

Deep down, I'm hoping that NASA is playing with this because they want to see if HD cameras are viable for a future lunar trip.

Other planets? Ehh, "live" video would be much more difficult. But I have to assume we could at least manage a stable streaming digital HD transmission from the moon.

[Nibb31]

The public interest is directly related to the amount of funding congress can justify for these missions.

If that were the case, the science community would be getting even less money than it gets now. In the list of stuff that interests the public, I can assure you that space exploration ranks at the very bottom.

Putting actual HD broadcast quality videos of the surface of alien planets on pay per view would make them millions. Funding problems for future missions solved.

With the attention span of the average TV viewer, a handful of people might watch it for 30 seconds before tuning into The Voice or some other crap. It wouldn't even cover the cost of the cameras, let alone the mission.

[Blue giant]

The video doesn't need to be transmitted live. Just recorded at 30fps and sent back in chunks of 15 minutes each or even smaller to be reassembled back on earth. Right now we have spacecraft in orbit around a comet, on and orbiting Mars, Saturn's moon titan, Ceres and approaching Pluto. I think that video cameras on these missions would have generated much more public interest with all the fantastic images from this feat of human exploration. It may also inspire a next generation of space engineers and ambitious missions, just like the apollo missions did. For example, I would love to see earthrise from the surface of Ceres, or 'Jupitor rise' from the surface of Europe and am sure that billions of other humans have that in built sense of awe and wonder that has got us where we are today.

[lajoswinkler]

There is no need for having HD video being streamed live. It's not even possible because the bandwidth is way too low (I saw something like 100 kB/s for Dawn and 2 kB/s for New Horizons). Distances are enormous, remember that. You can only have data trickling. Decent part of it is reserved for telemetry.

It's not even necessary to have a video stream. There is nothing moving there so that you could justify such expense.

But true color images, that's a totally different issue.

It's not Dawn's problem. Dawn already sends photos made through various filters all the time. It's the people in NASA that are too lazy/stupid to realize that few more man-hours spent on taking that data and making a true color image is what, in the end, drives their budget. All they need to do is sit in front of a computer and spend few hours working with an image editing software. One man can do it.

This passivity doesn't surprise me. NASA has a history of very poor public relations management, unlike SpaceX which streams the crap out of their every launch, even video from LOX tanks, for god's sake.

NASA can't even properly stream their launches without having gaps in the transmission or the stream collapsing at the moment of launch.

[Blue giant]

I think space x will definitely install video cameras when they start sending probes to the planets. Hopefully this will be within the next 10 years. They could implement 3d cameras and use oculus rift virtual reality headsets to play back recorded footage. (Live streaming is not even necessary). Elon Musk knows how to make money and what the public wants. Nasa will lose a lot of funding if they don't bring their PR into the 21st century.

Nothing moves on the planets? They rotate at 1000s mph. Some have dynamic atmospheric activities, including electrical storms. Active volcanoes are on venus, Io, and other exotic moons. Titon has liquid methane oceans and rivers, waterfalls, rain etc. Mars has dust devils, 2 moons in orbit and a massive canyon system. Can you imagine watching the sunset over that and then watch in awe as Jupitor and it's moons rise in the night sky. Mars being millions of miles closer to Jupitor than Earth.

These is also the fact that we can discovery many known unknowns and even more unknown unknowns using video cameras to replicate our eyes and brain in places where our fragile human bodies cannot survive.

[lajoswinkler]

 has made a color image of Ceres. I honestly don't know if it's realistic, because this is not the first time Cereses color image has been released and each time it was different.

I'm also thinking about the illumination. Can't be correct, knowing how low its albedo is and how distant from the Sun it is.