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I am developing an astronomy software and need to know the color of each planet in the Solar System, when observed with the naked eye. I cannot find that information after googling for a while. Is there any good source? a RBG color associated to each planet would be ideal but it can be any other color system.

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  • $\begingroup$ Google search provided this, more basic: curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/58-our-solar-system/… and more advanced, though this is from 2008, there might be updates out there: astronomycameras.com/data/editorials/20080320/assets/… $\endgroup$
    – userLTK
    Mar 6, 2016 at 1:20
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, I have seen that one from Cornell. It has a vague description of colors. The other one doesn't contain usable info for my purposes. $\endgroup$
    – Jaime
    Mar 6, 2016 at 2:32
  • $\begingroup$ colour when viewed from Earth, or when viewed close up under similar ilumination? $\endgroup$
    – SE - stop firing the good guys
    Mar 6, 2016 at 7:31
  • $\begingroup$ @Hohmannfan, any of them would help. I guess the second one is easier to determine. $\endgroup$
    – Jaime
    Mar 6, 2016 at 8:03
  • $\begingroup$ What colour would you describe the moon as? Silvery white, or dark grey? What exactly are your "purposes"? $\endgroup$
    – James K
    Mar 6, 2016 at 9:23

2 Answers 2

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Here are some values found by taking the hue from images, and adjusting the brightness to fit the albedo:

Mercury #1a1a1a Yes it is really that dark

Venus #e6e6e6 or perhaps a bit darker

Earth tricky as it is a mix of colors, and changes over the year seems to average out as about #2f6a69

Mars #993d00

Jupiter #b07f35

Saturn #b08f36

Uranus #5580aa

Neptune #366896

You might find these surprisingly dark. Planets look like bright dots against the dark sky

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    $\begingroup$ "pale #2f6a69 dot" $\endgroup$
    – SE - stop firing the good guys
    Mar 6, 2016 at 15:39
  • $\begingroup$ Hi James, that's exactly what I was looking for. I may apply some luminosity algorithm on the top of that, but that's a good starting point. $\endgroup$
    – Jaime
    Mar 6, 2016 at 18:54
  • $\begingroup$ @SE-stopfiringthegoodguys love it! $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    May 22, 2021 at 1:47
  • $\begingroup$ TIL you can just set the size of the image to 1 px to average every pixel into one. $\endgroup$
    – WarpPrime
    May 27, 2021 at 14:01
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First look up what elements the planets are composed of. Then figure out how the elements should react due to the planets atmosphere,light scattering,spin,sun reflection from natural satellites if one or many is present,gravity wave overlaps calculations. Finally how the human eye perceives them. But may I add the human eye will never be able to view the colors in there true form, The technology used to view the planets will not correlate to the human eye. So a composite of what the human eye should observe must be composed. "The amount of details reflects the amount of workmanship, that then could produce a Masterpiece. Its up too you"

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    $\begingroup$ This definitively doesn't help. I understand there may be sun reflection conditions, but besides that, each planet has a predominant color. That's what I am looking for. $\endgroup$
    – Jaime
    Mar 6, 2016 at 2:29

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