Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - 52

MARCH 2024 OBSERVING
Exploring the Solar System by Thomas A. Dobbins
Seeing Color on the Moon
O
There's more to see than light and shadow.
n Christmas Eve, 1968, the
Apollo 8 spacecraft swung into
orbit around the Moon. Shortly after
it emerged from the lunar nightside
and passed over the sunlit terminator,
Mission Control in Houston asked the
crew: " What does the ole Moon look
like from 60 miles? "
Astronaut Jim Lovell replied, " Okay,
Houston. The Moon is essentially gray,
no color. Looks like Plaster of Paris or
sort of a grayish beach sand. "
Lovell's impression of a starkly colorless
world as seen from lunar orbit is
like the first glance through a telescope
when the harsh glare of the sunlit lunar
landscape suddenly dazzles a darkadapted
eye. The dominant mineral in
the lunar crust is plagioclase, a gray alupThe
tawny color of the Aristarchus Plateau
stands out in this color-enhanced image by
Japanese amateur Shinichi Watanabe.
52 MARCH 2024 * SKY & TELESCOPE
minum-rich silicate mineral. The dusty
regolith covering the lunar surface is
derived from plagioclase-rich rocks, so
it too is predominantly gray. But localized
traces of other materials create a
rich palette of subtle hues. Most are
near the limit of visibility.
When seen just above the horizon,
the Moon appears golden because
our atmosphere absorbs and scatters
more light of short wavelengths. The
real lunar colors are best seen when
the Moon rides high in a transparent,
haze-free sky. Valdemar Axel Firsoff, an
accomplished observer and talented artist
who worked in watercolors advised:
. . . in thinking of lunar colours
we must always take the Earth's
atmosphere into account. It is there even
if the Moon is directly overhead. If all
our air could be compressed to sea-level
density it would form a uniform layer
5½ miles deep. . . . Thus, in comparing
lunar and planetary colourings with
those of familiar terrestrial objects
we should think not in terms of our
immediate surroundings but of horizon
views, 7 to 10 miles distant and
preferably seen through a telescope . . .
Personally I can see hardly any colour
on the Moon unless and until I ask the
question of how I would paint a certain
feature of the surface; then I begin to
try in my mind, and even better on
paper, to match what I see with paints
from a paint-box. Suddenly colour
appears where only light and shade were
before, and, having come, it stays.
In 1910 the physicist Robert W.
Wood took black-and-white photographs
of the Moon through a series
of color filters. He was struck by the
darkness in violet and ultraviolet light
of a diamond-shaped " island " measur

Sky & Telescope - March 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky & Telescope - March 2024

Contents
Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - Cover1
Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - Cover2
Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - 1
Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - Contents
Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - 3
Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - 4
Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - 5
Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - 6
Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - 7
Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - 8
Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - 9
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Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - 11
Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - 12
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Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - Cover3
Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - Cover4
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