NSSDC Photo Gallery Galileo Earth Image Sequence Caption

These images were taken by the Solid State Imager (SSI) on Galileo during its first flyby of the Earth in December of 1990. The images were all created by Dr. Edwin V. Bell, II (NSSDC/Raytheon ITSS), from separate filter images present on the Galileo Imaging CD-ROMs. Although the images appear to be a natural color photo, they are actually produced by combining colorized versions of the green, red, and infrared (9680 nm) filters of the SSI. The green filter is colorized as blue, the red filter as green, and the IR filter as red and the resulting images combined. This particular filter combination was chosen to bring out the land surface features (which emits more strongly in the infrared) and de-emphasize the ocean/atmosphere features (which scatter blue light strongly). The software used to colorize and blend the individual images together was Color It!™.

• Photo Gallery Earth page

Author/curator: Dr. Edwin V. Bell, II NSSDCA, Mail Code 690.1 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD 20771 +1-301-286-1187 ed.bell@nasa.gov

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