Artsnova Digital Art and Space

Clouds Over Olympus Mons color composite Mars Global Surveyor picture by Jim Plaxco

I’ve been asked to give my Imaging Mars presentation at the Northwest Suburban Astronomers and Harper College Astronomy Club’s Astronomy Day 2007 event on April 21 2007 at Harper College in Palatine IL. The Northwest Suburban Astronomers have been hosting Astronomy Day events for as long as I have lived in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. The first one I attended was back in the mid-1980’s.

This year’s event is being held at Harper College in Palatine. It is free and open to the public. Doors open at 5:30pm. If the weather is clear, telescopes will be set up outside for night sky observing and the college’s observatory will be available as well. I’m happy to say that local chapters of the National Space Society, as well as the NSS itself, played a role in the private fund raising that got this observatory built. Way to go NSS, NISA, CSSS, and CSFSL5.

The center of activities for the evening will be Building Z. Inside there will be displays, telescopes, information tables, a portable planetarium providing sky shows for the kids, and various kid-oriented craft activities. The programming lineup is:

Harper College is located northeast of the intersection of Algonquin and Roselle Roads in Palatine IL. In the map below Building Z is marked with a red Z and parking lots 2 and 3 are outlined in red.

Map to Harper College for Astronomy Day

To illustrate this post, I used a picture of that great Martian volcano Olympus Mons that I created by combining separate Mars Global Surveyor wide angle camera images. To learn more about Olympus Mons and the picture, see Clouds Over Olympus Mons at the Mars Art Gallery.

Ad Astra, Jim

This coming May I’ll be attending the International Space Development Conference in Dallas TX. I always look forward to ISDCs for the people and the presentations. I am especially looking forward to the space art related presentations, the space art show and art sale.

I am slated to give two presentations at the conference. One presentation I’ll be giving is Selling Space: The Waterfall Approach to Public Outreach which deals with a methodology for organizations to consider in implementing public outreach efforts for the purpose of promoting space exploration.

The other presentation I will be giving is The National Space Society Space Settlement Art Contest and deals with the recently concluded NSS space settlement art contest. Our committee recently completed work on the associated calendar and it is now in the hands of the publisher. The calendar will first appear for sale at the ISDC. I also completed an article about the contest and calendar for Ad Astra magazine. Unfortunately there was only room enough to cover the grand prize and four first prize winning images.

Writing the abstract was somewhat difficult given the word count constraints and the fact that I definitely wanted to mention all 12 winning entries and artists. To do that, I had to omit the background on the organizing and execution aspects of the contest. The abstract that I submitted follows.

If you’re curious, here are links to the Grand Prize and four First Prize winning entries:

• Grand Prize: The Return to Abalakin
• First Prize Orbital Settlements: Islands of the Gods
• First Prize Moon Settlements:Moonbase Preparations
• First Prize Mars Settlements: Mars from a Young Perspective
• First Prize Asteroid Settlements: Asteroid Settlement: Slingshot to the Galaxy

Or you can just go to the NSS Space Settlement Art Contest Gallery.

Ad Astra, Jim

I’ll be speaking at the monthly meeting of the Pixel Camera Club Tuesday, December 19 at the Schaumburg Library. The subject of my presentation will be “Imaging Mars” and it should last approximately one hour. My presentation will focus on the workflow and techniques that I use to process the raw PDS (Planetary Data System) image files from the Viking, Mars Global Surveyor, and Mars Exploration Rover missions to Mars.

Aside from using either the NASAVIEW or GIMP programs to open the PDS files and save them, all of my processing is done in Adobe Photoshop. This includes noise removal, destriping, contrast enhancement, and colorizing. Technically the most difficult of these tasks is the destriping of the push-broom noise inherent in the Mars Global Surveyor images and the stitching together of individual Mars Exploration Rover picture frames. Aesthetically, the most difficult task is the application of false color. I have developed several different methods of applying false color to pictures of Mars but which to use depends on the image itself.

I may also venture into some discussion of Hubble Space Telescope images of Mars. These pictures are stored in the FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) format which is the standard image format used by the astronomical community. In fact the picture that appears at the top of this post is a Hubble Space Telescope picture of Mars. For the inquisitive, Arabia Terra is the large light colored region on the right side. Acidalia Planitia is the dark region at the top. The light colored circular patch at the 7:00 position is Argyre Planitia.

In addition to the coloring challenge posed by these Hubble images, another challenge is locating the necessary FITS files. Locating and retrieving the FITS files for me begins at HubbleSite and ends at MAST (Multimission Archive at Space Telescope).

The folks at Pixel may get more than they have bargained for in that I’ll also be speaking about the geology of Mars. After all, how can you show pictures of Mars without explaining what the picture is. I suspect that many will find some interest here since one of their members indicated to me that many have an interest in nature photography.

Imaging Mars
Pixel Camera Club
7:30pm Tuesday, December 19 2006
Schaumburg Library, Schaumburg IL

Ad Astra, Jim

I just received an email from the folks at the Windycon Science Fiction Convention informing me of my programming schedule. I am slated to be on the following panels:

The Year in Science: Saturday 10:00 Grand North: From the discovery that Saturn’s F Ring is a spiral to the Demotion of Pluto: the year since last year’s Windycon has brought a plethora of scientific change. B. Higgins, D. Lacey, M. Olson, J. Plaxco, S. Shostak.

Defining the Drake Equation: Saturday Noon Grand North: The panelists will explain what the Drake Equation is and then explain how useful it really is and whether it has any actual basis in fact. B. Higgins, J. Plaxco, S. Shostak, W. Thomasson.

Designing a Spaceship: Saturday 1:00 Narita B: How does an artist go about designing a realistic looking spaceship? How do authors make their spacecraft believable?? As they discuss the process, a rocket scientist will comment on their progress and process. J. Lilly, S. Martinière, J. Plaxco, F. Ruiz, D. Waltz.

I will also be giving the following presentation:

The Universe According to Monty Python: Sunday Noon: Heathrow: An in-depth, systematic analysis of the planetary, astronomical, and cosmological findings of the comedy group as published in the “Galaxy Song.” J. Plaxco. (Note: attempts to put the name of the group (as seen in the title) into the previous sentence or even this sentence caused my hosting provider’s security alarm bells to go off. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps they have a thing against that group of comedians with the initials M.P.)

I’m especially excited to see that I will be on two panels with Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute. At the closing of last year’s Windycon, I was asked by Pat, one of Windycon’s organizers, if I could recommend someone prominent in the field of SETI. Seth was at the top of my list. I agreed to make the initial contact with him to see if he would be interested. I had met Seth once before: in 1993 at the International Space Development Conference in Huntsville, AL. I don’t recall much about that conference but I do remember Seth and I going out for breakfast at a nice restaurant in the historic district.

As always I look forward to the chance to participate in the programming at Windycon and to catch up with folks who I haven’t seen since the last local science fiction convention.

Ad Astra, Jim