Does New Horizons' Camera in color?

[fenderzilla]

Just wondering if the camera on the New Horizons probe is in visible color, because the pictures it took of Jupiter's moons were black and white. I'm guessing it's an infrared camera, for science, so no visible light colors. That would be a bummer, because I wanted to see Pluto in color.

[ZedNova]

From wikipedia:

Pluto Exploration Remote Sensing Investigation (PERSI)

This consists of two instruments: The Ralph telescope, 6 cm (2.4 in) in aperture, with two separate channels: a visible-light CCD imager (MVIC- Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera) with broadband and color channels, and a near-infrared imaging spectrometer, LEISA (Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array). LEISA is derived from a similar instrument on the EO-1 mission. The second instrument is an ultraviolet imaging spectrometer, Alice. Alice resolves 1,024 wavelength bands in the far and extreme ultraviolet (from 50–180 nm), over 32 view fields. Its goal is to view the atmospheric makeup of Pluto. This Alice is derived from an Alice on the Rosetta mission. Ralph, designed afterwards, was named after Alice's husband on The Honeymooners. Ralph and Alice are names, not acronyms.

If this article is accurate, then the answer is yes.

[metaphor]

It has two visible light cameras. The narrow-angle camera, LORRI, is used for long-range observations and is black and white. The wide-angle camera, Ralph, is in color. The spacecraft used LORRI at Jupiter, and the pictures we're getting now of Pluto and Charon orbiting each other are taken with LORRI. Once it gets closer to Pluto, it will use Ralph for color imaging.

[Tommygun]

I thought that even with infrared there are ways of determining color from the image and then they can create a false color image.

[fenderzilla]

wow just realized, great grammar there in the title, old me

[ZedNova]

wow just realized, great grammar there in the title, old me

Don't you love that feeling?