Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1979

Abstract

Visual obser vations of the color of both desert and ocean scenes, made by the U.S. astronauts on the Apollo-Soyuz mission, were analyzed and compared to photographs of the same regions, During the mission, use of Munsell color chips on a specially developed "color wheel* made the comparison possible. Colors on photographs never exactly match those observed from space; available films are less color sensitive than the human eye and do not capture the truc Earth colors. Determination of a color correction factor for use with the pholographs was not possible pecause of the inconsistent variations in measured colors and because of the meager statistical basis. It is recommended that additional observations be made from Earth orbit utilizing uniformly illumi- nated color chips. This would allow meaningful correlations between natural colors as seen from spacc and those depicted on orbital photographs.quantify the color observations by was made o the use of standard color chips. In addition to the knowledge of actual Earth color, it was hoped that astronaut visual color observations could be used to calibrate the colors on the photographs.It was recently realized that color is an impor- tant parameter in studying orbital photographs. For example, in occanography, measurements of water color are important in identifying distinct ocean currents, eddies, and areas of biological pro- ductivity (ref. 3). Also, in desert regions, a study of color variations could supply information on sand sources and the relative ages of sand seas ref. 4).

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