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Moon Space

South Korean Moon Mission Delivers Devastatingly Gorgeous Earth Views (cnet.com) 38

Posted by BeauHD from the out-of-this-world dept.
South Korea's Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter spacecraft, known as Danuri, has sent back some high-resolution images from the moon. The Korea Aerospace Research Institute shared the views on Twitter this week. CNET reports: The first two come from late December and show the cratered landscape of the moon with Earth peeking above the horizon. The images are reminiscent of Earthrise views seen from NASA's Apollo and Artemis missions. KARI shared a second set of Earth images snapped during the new year.
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South Korean Moon Mission Delivers Devastatingly Gorgeous Earth Views More

South Korean Moon Mission Delivers Devastatingly Gorgeous Earth Views

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  • OK, I respect that they got that probe all the way out there. But those photos suck. They aren't color ... the more frequencies of light you can detect, the better you can distinguish features. The lunar surface looks like cheaply rendering in-game realtime graphics.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dohzer ( 867770 )

      You sound absolutely devastated about the by the views. Mission accomplished.

    • From the caption on the photo: "Photo taken on December 24 at 344 km above the moon"

      You probably aren't going to get highly detailed features at 344 km above the Moon along with an image of the Earth 384,400 km in the distance. If the image is a screen grab from a navigational camera, then it is even more impressive at the level of detail shown.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by lsllll ( 830002 )

        You probably aren't going to get highly detailed features at 344 km above the Moon

        Then why tout it as "South Korean Moon Mission Delivers Devastatingly Gorgeous Earth Views"? Because there's nothing stunning about those images.

        • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

          by CaptQuark ( 2706165 )

          I guess it depends on what each person thinks is a Gorgeous Earth View. If your description is an overly color-saturated reproduction of the "Earthrise" photo then no, this does not compare.

          If you look at B&W photos from Ansel Adams as a standard, then yes, I would classify this as a great photo. Amanda Kooser from CNET was also impressed by these photos since it was her headline that described the photos as "Devastatingly Gorgeous".

          Ansel Adams Yosemite images [google.com]

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ichthus ( 72442 )

            If your description is an overly color-saturated reproduction of the "Earthrise" photo...

            Some color would be nice. No need to straw man here.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by lsllll ( 830002 )
            Being a photo enthusiast who has taken many photos on B&W rolls and developed and printed them in darkrooms, I obviously see the appeal of B&W photography. But for me the beauty in B&W photography is to bring the viewer's focus to the parts I meant them to via frame composition, using hard shadows under light, and then later on in the darkroom via dodge/burn and other techniques. A photo of Earth from space has none of those characteristics. There's no frame composition. There are no shadows

            • After all, publishing a photo of Earth from space should not be considered a work of art, but a work of science.
              Oh, publishing perhaps yes, probably that is not even science.
              But the art is in making the instruments, which is science too, but at a level were science and art are deeply interwoven.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by zlives ( 2009072 )

          because its posted on twitter and on a tiny phone screen its devastating.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by GoJays ( 1793832 )
          Because it is Internet "journalism" of the last 10 years, everything is sensationalized to drive clicks, even if it means the writer putting their credibility at risk.

      • Well, honestly for me ANY photo from space of earth is pretty farkin' impressive.... just think of what changes have happened in the past 150 years for those pictures to even be possible.

    • The lunar surface looks like cheaply rendering in-game realtime graphics.

      That's because of the harsh directional light.

      Their renderer doesn't have ambient lighting /s

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      They aren't color ... the more frequencies of light you can detect, the better you can distinguish features.

      Would it interest you to know that most of what you see in terms of picture from space isn't colour? Including the JWST and nearly every beautiful "colour" image you've seen?

      Before deciding whether a photo sucks, it's worth asking what it is even recording. Hint: This is a Near-IR camera. It's purpose is not to show you a blue / green ball.

    • Yeah, it's a little unfortunate, but scientists always seem to choose B&W for the improved resolution instead of color. I guess they have their reasons, but it's kind of hard to call these images "devastatingly gorgeous".

      I guess the original Earthrise still takes the crown. For some reason, color is important to people at some emotional level. From a Space.com article: "The 1968 photo was not actually the first Earthrise image; that distinction goes to a picture taken by NASA's robotic Lunar Orbiter

      • A color CCD has 3 "buckets" for every pixel it collects. A reg, green, and blue one. Just like your eyes basically. But that means 3 sensors for every pixel.

        It's easier to put a red filter in front, capture red, then green, then blue, then combine them in processing.

        But if you care about non-visible wavelengths, and this picture is in IR, you'd need a 4th collector. Or a 5th, 6th, etc. So, you just add more filters on the wheel in front of the CCD.

        • It's easier to put a red filter in front, capture red, then green, then blue, then combine them in processing.

          Given how tiny modern CCD cameras are, I'd have thought it would have been easier to simply add a secondary color camera o the spacecraft for beauty shots, given how tiny and inexpensive they are these days. It's not like you have to make an excuse for the spacecraft being ten or fifteen years old, like with deep space explorers. Nor is there really any scientific reason I can think of to sacrifice color for resolution when taking a picture of the Earth from the moon.

          But, what the hell do I know? I'm sur

    • Re:Huh? (Score:4, Funny)

      by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Thursday January 05, 2023 @06:32AM (#63181628)

      They aren't color ...

      I know what you mean. Those photos from Ansel Adams and Robert Doisneau absolutely suck balls because the're not in color.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I guess they figured that there isn't much colour on the moon so might as well use 1/3rd of the bandwidth.

      There is some colour but I'm not sure any of it is visible from orbit.

      What's really impressive is how low the orbit it. With no atmosphere and little gravity, it feels like flying in an aircraft. The size of the Earth is nice too. I bet it looks huge in person.

    • They aren't color???

      Black

      White

      Gray

      FTFY. HAND.

    • High definition cameras are not always constructed to see the same frequencies that you do. And "color" is a way that our eyes group moderately wide ranges of frequencies into three major channels -- not a highly realistic reflection of the actual frequencies of light seen.

      This particular camera took images using a single channel of frequencies in the near infrared. There is not a straightforward way to translate the frequencies of near-infrared into those of the visible spectrum, and assigning them to RGB

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by k6mfw ( 1182893 )
      I think the real issue people are missing is there are many other countries taking interest in the moon and sending spacecraft to the moon. Old guy here, I remember the days when there were only two countries that could do this. Now there are several which indicates technological capabilities other countries now have. So what does it all mean? I dunno, I guess they could have provided color but still the sharpest of that image is pretty good. Which I wonder of someone will take it to the next level and get
  • I bet you can take really nice photos of me with it.

    Seriously, not "stunning".

    • Re:Black and white (Score:4, Funny)

      by poptopdrop ( 6713596 ) on Thursday January 05, 2023 @03:28AM (#63181422)

      Black and white and in Korean.

      The sort of deep-but-crappy foreign movie that gets 100/100 from the critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

    • Really?

      Most images of space (even the ones you see in colour) are recorded in black and white. This is an infrared camera if you care to look at the picture properly.

      • To clarify and amplify -- "color" is a construct of our eyes that results from us having three types of retinal cells, each able to respond to a specific band of frequencies. To take a "color" photo, then, requires three types of photocell receptors, each tuned to a different band (or with a different filter). It is more straightforward to use a single type of photocell and filter for space cameras -- especially when the photocell is receptive to frequencies we can't even see, such as the near-infrared use

  • You keep using that word (Score:4)

    by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Thursday January 05, 2023 @10:44AM (#63182136)

    Devastatingly: adverb, In a devastating manner.

    Devastating:
    - highly critical; making light of.
    - causing or capable of causing complete destruction.
    - causing devastation
    - wreaking or capable of wreaking complete destruction
    - physically or spiritually devastating

    So unless you're showing something like post-apocalyptic photos or something similar, stop using that word.

  • You'd think they could have afforded a COLOR camera?

  • Happy for a successful mission by the South Koreans but these pix look like they are from 1980s. I was expecting some JWST level photos...
  • Interviewing a millennial for a reporting or Slashdot editor job:

    nterviewer: So how would you describe this image from the Korean moon mission?

    millennial: It's devastatingly gorgeous

    Interviewer: How would you describe an upcoming storm hitting California?

    millennial: It's a bomb cyclone!!!

    Interviewer: How would you describe this season's flu and Covid with RSV going around?

    millennial: It's a TRIPLEDEMIC!!!

    Interviewer: You're hired...

  • I followed the link to the images, why does the page feel like an giant marketing campaign for NASA?

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