Could the spacecraft—just in theory—introduce an atmosphere? Maybe not this spacecraft, but if we’re riding around in the starship Enterprise and want to get better snaps of asteroids, would it be a good idea to just send out a big pair of glass hemispheres, encapsulate the asteroid with them, pump them full of air, and then take a picture of the asteroid-capsule system?
Alternately, could you stick something really good at diffusing light—like a big block of aerogel—between the sun and the asteroid?
This shot was taken from 9m away. A powerful camera flash would have been sufficient. It fact it seems like a bit of a missed opportunity not to have a handful of powerful but tiny LEDs on the spacecraft and take shots with different lighting to try to get the most detail out of this as possible. Yes you need to be quick, but this can be designed.
As far as I know these things are designed for scientific value and not for producing cool pictures for viewers. I am sure they are getting the best possible value for their budget with whatever they designed.
You'd need miles and miles of air to get the kind of blue sky environment we think of as diffuse light. If you wanted to try this trick, it would be easier just to deploy a big translucent sunshade over the frame.
Or just do the science with the camera you have and ignore the fact that human viewers don't like the results aesthetically.
The gravity likely isn't strong enough to hold the atmosphere. Also, that's a lot of material. A large white solar sail style diffuser might work, or even easier a really really powerful flash (probably explosive based).
Well, yeah, that’s why I mention encapsulating the thing in a glass ball or somesuch first, to hold the air in as it’s pumped over. Make a gatcha/Kinder Surprise asteroid. Obviously impractical, but I really like the image of it.
Wouldn't it be immensely more practical to match course and speed, have the object perfectly still relative to you, then take multiple pictures at different exposures and assemble them into an High Dynamic Range picture? Then if you really feel like it you can apply a diffuse filter to it.
Could the spacecraft—just in theory—introduce an atmosphere? Maybe not this spacecraft, but if we’re riding around in the starship Enterprise and want to get better snaps of asteroids, would it be a good idea to just send out a big pair of glass hemispheres, encapsulate the asteroid with them, pump them full of air, and then take a picture of the asteroid-capsule system?
Alternately, could you stick something really good at diffusing light—like a big block of aerogel—between the sun and the asteroid?