Common Themes

So I’m cheating, I’ve featured Alan Bean, artist and moonwalker before, quite a while ago, but one image just isn’t enough where Bean is concerned! As mentioned in the previous post, one of the best things about his artwork (in my opinion) is the amount of color used on an otherwise muted landscape. These first two display lovely use of color — if you look at the first image and think “grey”, go back and look closer!

Below is an experiment in coloring (one of four.)

This last one exhibits phenomenal lighting — check out his website for the complete (browseable!) catalog!

If you have a moment, why not take this survey on aesthetics and astronomy?

Images of the cosmos provide snapshots of various phases of life and death, different physical phenomena, found in locations across the known Universe. Today, some 400 years after Galileo created his, modern telescopes have enabled us to “see” what the human eye cannot. This new generation of ground- and space-based telescopes has created an explosion of images for the public to explore.

This survey will study your perception of multi-wavelength astronomical imagery and the effects of the scientific and artistic choices in processing astronomical data. The images come from a variety of space and ground-based observatories, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, the Very Large Array, the Hinode satellite, and many others. Evaluation of such valuable data will benefit astronomy across the electromagnetic spectrum of astronomical images, and may help visualization of data in other scientific disciplines.

The questions they asked make me think that all input will be extremely valuable for future handling and presentation of astronomical data to the public — they really want to know what you think!

In celebration of Hubble Heritage’s 10th anniversary, they released this “landscape” image on October 2nd. The image is beautiful — Hubble images are, in general, quite pretty — but what boggled my noggin was the downloadable size. The full resolution version is over 7,700 pixels wide. You have to see it to believe it!

The landmark 10th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope’s Hubble Heritage Project is being celebrated with a ‘landscape’ image from the cosmos. Cutting across a nearby star-forming region, called NGC 3324, are the “hills and valleys” of gas and dust displayed in intricate detail. Set amid a backdrop of soft, glowing blue light are wispy tendrils of gas as well as dark trunks of dust that are light-years in height. NGC 3324 is located in the constellation Carina, about 7,200 light-years away from Earth. This image is a composite of data taken with two of Hubble’s science instruments. Data taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in 2006 isolated light emitted by hydrogen. More recent data, taken in 2008 with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), isolated light emitted by sulfur and oxygen gas. To create a color composite, the data from the sulfur filter are represented by red, from the oxygen filter by blue, and from the hydrogen filter by green.

From Yemen, a set of stamps with visions of possible space stations.

I’m so happy to have run across this fantastic photo by chattycathy7575 — simply the best Googie motel sign I’ve seen (and certainly the most directly related to this site!) Hop on board and enjoy this Tuesday Googie thing….