A propósito,hace tiempo envíe un mail a la gente de la Cassini felicitándoles y preguntándoles si sería posible que incluyeran más imágenes en color al ser lo que le gusta al gran público.Me contestaron (no me lo esperaba) y aquí tenéis la respuesta;creo que es interesante de leer:
We do release a color image a week..sometimes more.
However, it is not always the imaging camera.
Sometimes it is the other instruments that
release data. It may be significant for
scientists but I can understand the public's
desire for more of the beauty of Saturn.
Creating color images is a complex task requiring
much more labor and computer time than black and
white images. This is because all Cassini images
are recorded in black and white. The camera
records the amount of light (not the color of the
light) coming through a filter in front of the
sensor. It is the filters that come in color.
To create color images scientists take three
black and white images of the same target with
the red, green, and blue (RGB) filters. In other
words, one image records the amount of red light
(using a red filter), another records the amount
of green and one the amount of blue light (using
green and blue filters respectively). Color
renditions of the scene are then constructed on
the ground by combining images taken with the
different filters.
Unfortunately, these three images are not taken
simultaneously. Consequently, intricate fitting
and geometric transformations are needed to
construct the color image because the spacecraft,
planet, rings and moons have all moved a little
during the time it takes to record the images
using the different filters.
It's a challenge. Our scientists receive about
1 gb per day on a slower day, and up to 4 gb per
day on a good day for four years. The time and
effort needed to process, calibrate, validate,
and format this volume of data is substantial --
not to mention designing the observations and
creating the files that enable the spacecraft to
acquire the data in the first place, and then
doing any scientific analysis.
That all being said, it is breathtaking when we
do release a color image. We all love them.
La única foto parecida que recuerdo haber visto es de uno de los Voyager mientras se alejaba del planeta.
