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I think this is the method used by human eyes to make "color calibration": this is the reason for which it is used in camcorders.
When I look around inside my home, ALL objects are enlightened by yellow lights, so ALL colors are changed with the same yellow-factor: when I make "white-balance", I subtract the exceeding yellow component from all objects I look at, so I don't feel like looking at yellow landscape (but I catually see a yellow landscape into my camcorder, if I don't make white balance!).
I suppose the same would happen on Mars: as soon as I would arrive on Mars, I would see all reddish, but then my eyes would adjust ("white-balance"), and I would see "true colors"... or not?!? ???

What are you talking about?

See above.

Luca

My simple 800$ digital camcorder has a nice feature called "auto white balance": you point it to a white sheet, you click the button, and - tah-dah! - :band:  you have your colors automaGically balanced, just as human eye does when looking at differently enlightened scenes! If I don't use auto-white-balance, if I shoot pictures INSIDE home they look yellowish, due to artificial illumination; but, after the auto-balance, white objects appear white, no more yellow.

Didn't they have some hundreds of bucks out of those 800 million, to add a simple commercial camcorder to all those instruments?...  ???
This would have also solved another simple problem: if there was something moving (!) around the rovers, we'll never know, just because they can't shoot frames quick enough...
They could be even surrounded by martian bugs looking like little rocks, and we would never know, as rovers have no life-detection or motion-detection systems! Maybe they were too expensive... but it's quite interesting how a simple 800 bucks instrument would have solved these problems! 

Luca

Yes. Unfotrunately I couldn't find orbital color image of opportunity's site. 

Luca

I think compression should INCREASE noise...

I don't mind the color, I  am looking just at the noise: if there is noise in R, G, and B components, it MUST be present also in RGB composition!

But maybe other users of this forum proposed the right explanation: there are no raw images available on Internet, only COMPRESSED raw images, while probably NASA built that panorama from REAL raw images, with no noise... although it still looks quite difficult that the sky is actually so flat, with no color variations (blue or pink, it is not important).

Luca

Really you don't see it?!?  :hm:
Don't you see that in the original images the sky is blue and "noisy", while in NASA's ones is flat and reddish?
Don't you see, in the detail of NASA image, the difference between the upper part of the image, flat and "perfect", and the lower part, irregular and  noisy?

It's quite obvious that the sky has been cut and replaced with flat color. If it was just a color matter, it could be "noisy red", but it CAN'T be a flat color, the raw images are VERY noisy!

Look again:

raw image                                                                       NASA image
       

Luca

I don't believe in NASA conspiracy, in  hidden Martians, in plants&animals spotted by Spirit & Opportunity, I just believe in what I can see, and THIS is what I see:

My composition from [http://www.lyle.org/mars/bysol/2-089.html]raw images

[http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/spirit_index_81_100.html]Marcoff's composition

[http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 20040408a/]NASA composition

Details:
     

(Last one is raw l7 pancam image).

Why do they hide the sky? There is nothing there!!!  :hm:  ??? :rant:

Luca  :realllymad:

Nice question!

So do I, since several weeks. :;):

Luca

I found a [http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/]great site for Spirit/Opportunity color images!! :band:
(It's not Keith Laney's one).

Luca

Main Spirit's mission is over:

[http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … A094R1.jpg](zoom)

Ok, let's go on! 

Luca

Now we have [http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1528]3d color animations of Spirit's hills!   :band:

Luca

New animation of the "river":
[http://jumpjack.altervista.org/immagini/anim-river3.gif]river 3  (3.4 MB)
(I also fixed [http://jumpjack.altervista.org/immagini/anim-river.gif]river 1 1 and [http://jumpjack.altervista.org/immagini/anim-river2.gif]river 2 , which were not visible)

Luca

This is a very wild idea... :;):

I think that the surface temperature is suitable for existence of ice, and that underground volcanic activity could explain why it is not detected from orbit; maybe there could be no hot lava under those craters, but just warm water flowing under the frozen surface, causing sinking in some areas were ice is thinner.
Warm water could be the result of hot lava warming it butfar from here... I think Opportunity should follow the crater (which actually looks more like a rut than like a creater), to see where it come from, or where it goes to. (I am thinking to something like underground river).

Luca