Artsnova Digital Art and Space

Dunes of Mars by Jim Plaxco

Did you ever notice how time can just slip away from you? That’s what happened to me this month. So here I sit at 11:30pm on a Friday night working up a posting just so August does not pass without my having said anything.

So what have I been doing? Well following my last post here, I wrote a book review for the National Space Society’s web site which was the featured Non-fiction Book of the Month. The book that I reviewed, Utilization of Space, was a rather arduous read but well worth it. I just finished writing another book review - this time ISScapades: The Crippling of America’s Space Program by Donald A. Beattie. That review should be up on the NSS web site some time in the next several days.

Graphically, my time was split between experimenting with graphics effects using Photoshop, creating a digital painting of a total solar eclipse, and working with both Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image files.

The image above, “Dunes of Mars”, is a Mars Global Surveyor Narrow Angle Camera image of dunes near the north pole of Mars. For this image, I spent most of my time experimenting with coloring methods as all MGS NA images are 8 bit grayscales. All work was performed using Adobe Photoshop. In the end I was quite pleased with the colorization I achieved. My next task is to update my Mars Art Gallery for which I have a rather large backlog of MGS and MRO images waiting to be posted.

To close, I would like to quote from science fiction author and visionary Arthur C. Clarke: “The astronomical artist will always be far ahead of the explorer. They can depict scenes that no human eye will ever see, because of their danger, or their remoteness in time and space.” Fortunately Mars no longer falls into this category.

Ad Astra, Jim

ESO photo of Spiral galaxy NGC 1232

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) publishes a periodic e-newsletter about ESO’s activities and astronomy. The June 2007 issue of ESO Messenger is now available. Articles in this issue include:

• Astronomy in the Czech Republic
• Progress of the ALMA Project
• Exploring the Near-infrared at High Spatial and Spectral Resolution:
• First Results from CRIRES Science Verification
• Towards Precision Photometry with FORS: A Status Report
• Using the h-index to explore the scientific impact of the VLT

The 80 page PDF can be downloaded from http://www.eso.org/sci/publications/messenger/. Back issues of the ESO Messenger are also available from the same page.

You can receive email notification of the release of new issues by sending an email to majordomo@eso.org with the following line as the message body:
subscribe eso-enews your_email_address

The ESO web site also hosts an excellent Public Image Archive featuring a wide variety of astronomical pictures. In addition to having a variety of resolutions available for download, the text descriptions provide good background information on the associated image.

As an example, see the image above used to illustrate this article. The description on the ESO web page for this photograph of Spiral galaxy NGC 1232 is: “This spectacular image of the large spiral galaxy NGC 1232 was obtained on September 21, 1998, during a period of good observing conditions. It is based on three exposures in ultra-violet, blue and red light, respectively. The colours of the different regions are well visible: the central areas contain older stars of reddish colour, while the spiral arms are populated by young, blue stars and many star-forming regions. Note the distorted companion galaxy on the left side, shaped like the greek letter ‘theta’. NGC 1232 is located 20_ south of the celestial equator, in the constellation Eridanus (The River). The distance is about 100 million light-years, but the excellent optical quality of the VLT and FORS allows us to see an incredible wealth of details. At the indicated distance, the edge of the field shown corresponds to about 200,000 lightyears, or about twice the size of the Milky Way galaxy.”

So feed your eyes and feed your brain by taking a tour of the Public Image Archive.

Ad Astra, Jim

I spent this last weekend at the DucKon Science Fiction Convention as the Science Guest of Honor. I was both flattered and honored when the organizers selected me as Science GOH. It is worth pointing out that it was my love of science fiction, especially hard SF and SF dealing with human settlement of the Solar System, that got me interested in science in general and astronomy and planetary geology in particular.

Arriving at the con at 5:00 or so on Friday, I had to get checked in, pick up my registration, and get my artwork set up in the Art Show. I brought seven pieces with me, one of which I donated to the Super-Con-Duck-Tivity Charity Auction. This was especially fun because I told the staffers that they would have to pick which one of my seven pieces they thought would bring in the most money and that would be the one that I would donate. The fun part was listening as they weighed the pros and cons of each piece. In the end they choose NGC 7000, a digital astrophotography piece. The other six pieces in the art show were:

• Fate of the Sister Star - an impressionist interpretation of a supernova,
• In the Stream of Stars - a blue gas giant planet against a background “stream” of stars,
• A Moonish Mars - a view of the region of Pickering Crater created from a composite of Viking orbiter images,
• The Face on Mars - a color rendition of the “Face” using Mars Global Surveyor Narrow Angle Camera data,
• Intus Astrum Navis - a 3D surreal rendering of the interior of an alien star ship,
• Mistress Moon - a Photoshop created version of the Earth’s Moon.

My hat is off to Melissa, who ran the art show, and to Trouble whose assistance was invaluable. Both ladies encouraged me to participate in this fall’s Windycon SF convention and I might just take them up on it.

Friday evening’s activities consisted of the opening ceremonies, the high point for which was having a vulture from the World Bird Sanctuary flying around the room inches over the audience’s heads. Following was the Spacetime Theater’s presentation of Dancing With the Star Wars which was a mix of improv and comedy routines. Following the show I spent my time in conversation with various folks: some old friends and some new.

Saturday was a busy day during which I gave two presentations and chaired one panel. I was pretty happy with how my presentation of The NSS Space Settlement Art Contest turned out. I was even happier to have a full house for my The Universe According to Monty Python talk, which I had to rush somewhat since my analysis of this two and a half minute song actually has a little more than an hour’s worth of material. I met up with my space artist friends Walter Myers and Tom Peters for our panel Space Art: Voyage to a New Frontier. Tom had brought along several of his pieces to facilitate discussion. Walt had also brought art but, like me, he had it all in the art show. Dinner that night saw me, Walt, Tom and his wife heading out for a steak dinner.

Later that evening Walt and I attended the con’s art auction. Sotheby’s it wasn’t. An art auction at a SF convention is far more fun. The auctioneers and runners did a great job of selling artwork while simultaneously entertaining the audience. Afterwards Walt and I made the rounds of the parties, er hospitality suites. One such venue was serving a particularly appealing mysterious blue liquid: an interesting combination of tasty and deadly.

Sunday morning I was sitting in the con’s Green Room having coffee and a late breakfast when I was joined by the con’s guest of honor Alan Dean Foster. Surprisingly our conversation was centered around people we knew and family, and not science fiction. I was then off to deliver my Imaging Mars presentation in which I provide an overview of how people can process Mars science mission imaging data for themselves.

Checking in at the Art Show I was pleased to learn that four of my six pieces had sold, not counting the piece I donated which had also sold at the previous night’s auction. Surprising to me was that The Face on Mars had not sold. My supposition that it would be the most appealing piece to an SF audience was obviously incorrect.

And that was pretty much the end of my weekend at DucKon. I do expect to return next year with a new lineup of both presentations and art for the auction.

Ad Astra, Jim

Rain Forest Fantasy Digital Artwork by Jim Plaxco

I have no sooner recovered from the International Space Development Conference than I must get prepared for the DucKon Science Fiction Convention for the weekend of June 8-10. This year’s theme: “The Duck Side of the Force”.

I was very much honored and flattered by DucKon’s decision that I would be this year’s Science Guest of Honor. It seems strangely appropriate since it was my childhood interest in science fiction that got me interested in science to begin with.

Following is a list of the presentations and panels that I will be involved in.

Opening Ceremonies, Friday 7:00pm, Main Stage

The grand opening festivities for the convention.

The NSS Space Settlement Art Contest, Saturday, 11:00am, Conf B

This is an expanded version of a presentation I gave at the International Space Development Conference reviewing the NSS Space Settlement Art Contest and the artwork that won that competition and which is featured in the Space Settlement Art Calendar.

The Universe According to Monty Python, Saturday 1:00pm, Conf B

An in depth analysis of the planetary, astronomical, and cosmological statements made in Monty Python’s “The Galaxy Song”

Space Art: Voyage to a New Frontier, Saturday 3:00pm, Conf B

This is a panel about space art that I arranged and which will feature two space artist friends of mine: Walt Myers and Tom Peters. The description that we submitted for the panel is “an exploration of the aesthetic of space art and how artists must balance imagination and reality.”

Imaging Mars, Sunday 11:00am, Conf B

An introduction to the image processing associated with Mars mission data and an exploration of Martian geology using imagery from the Viking and Mars Global Surveyor missions to Mars. This presentation is focused on giving people enough information so that they too can begin to process PDS images themselves.

As always, I look forward to DucKon as I have always felt it to be the most science friendly SF convention in the Chicago area. For complete details about the convention visit the DucKon Science Fiction Convention web site.

Ad Astra, Jim

Dissecting NGC4414 by Jim Plaxco

While attending the ISDC (International Space Development Conference) in Dallas, the organization Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) announced the creation of their All-Student Space Art Competition. It’s great to see another pro-space organization sponsoring a space art contest, especially one that is geared towards students.

Following is the text of their press release:

Unfortunately the art.seds.org web site is not active as of this writing (June 03) so more information is not yet available. I am looking forward to poring over the artwork that is submitted to the contest.

Ad Astra, Jim

Photoshop National Space Society Banner Let’s Build a Future Together by Jim Plaxco

Last night I submitted an entry to the NSS (National Space Society) Banner Design Contest. What made my submission unusual is that I am one of the judges for the contest. This left my fellow judges wondering what my intentions were - was I dropping out as a judge to become a contestant? Did I want a crack at the $500.00 cash prize? Not at all I explained. The night before (Wednesday) I had gone to the NSS Banner Design Gallery to look over the submissions that I would be voting on. Unfortunately I didn’t see any that I really liked. Most were far too science fictiony for my tastes given that these designs are to be used to produce a banner promoting the NSS and its chapters. I expressed my negative feelings to my fellow judges in an e-mail. After sending that e-mail, I thought “why just criticize - what can I come up with?” I figured that I would see what I could do so later that night I set out to create my own banner design. It is that design which is the illustration for this post. You can see a larger version on my submission page.

In creating this banner, there were five basic elements to consider:

• the background image
• the NSS logo
• the NSS name
• an appropriate slogan
• creating a composition from these individual elements

For a background, I decided to go with a lunar landscape that featured an Apollo LEM (Lunar Excursion Module). To achieve this, I composited together a series of Apollo 16 70mm Hasselblad images. These became a single layer in my Photoshop document. I located a separate image of the Earth, also from the Apollo 16 mission, taken en route to the Moon. I brought this into Photoshop as another layer. To this I added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer as a clipping mask and slightly increased both the saturation and lightness of the Earth.

I now had to come up with a slogan. A page full of scribbled ideas later, I decided to go with “Let’s Build a Future Together.”

Lastly, with the Moon, the Earth, my slogan, the NSS logo, and the NSS name all on separate Photoshop layers, I began to work with both the placement and the sizing of the individual elements. At this point the only element that remained static was the lunar background. I eventually arrived at a composition that I was happy with and called it a night.

Yesterday after work I used the automated design submission form to enter my design in the contest. Why not give it a try yourself. You can find all the details about the contest at the National Space Society Banner Design Contest web page.

Ad Astra, Jim

This is not a tutorial. It is a Not Tutorial. Confused? Hopefully it will all be clear by the time I’m done. More than once I have come across tutorials on how to use Photoshop to create planetary rings. In fact since this is totally Photoshop specific, it will serve as the inaugural posting to a new topic section devoted to Photoshop. While I have mentioned Adobe Photoshop in several previous postings, I have never gone into sufficient detail to warrant creating a Photoshop category - until now.

Back to planetary rings and Photoshop: there is a widely prescribed method for creating rings which I call the swirly clouds method because it relies on Photoshop’s Twirl Tool. Let me give you a quick run through of how these tutorials proceed. We’re not going to worry about the planet. Our focus is on the ring system and how it gets created.

1. Start up Photoshop.
2. Create a 1000 by 1000 pixel document.
3. Fill the background layer with black.
4. Create a new layer named Rings.
5. Make the Rings layer the active layer.
6. Filter -> Render -> Clouds
7. Filter -> Distort -> Twirl using an angle of 999°. Repeat two more times.
8. Activate the Elliptical Marquee Tool
9. Position your cursor at the center of the document and click-Alt-Shift to create a centered perfectly circular selection. Drag to the desired inner boundary for your rings, release, and press the Delete key to remove the inner swirly area.
10. Position your cursor at the center of the document and click-Alt-Shift to create a centered perfectly circular selection. Drag to the desired outer boundary for your rings, release, press Shift-Ctrl-I to invert the selection, and press the Delete key to remove the outer swirly area.
11. Ctrl-T to activate the Transform tool. Flatten and tilt to create the perspective you want for your planet’s rings.

And that’s all there is to it. Note that following step 10 you could have added noise, color, whatever. Not bad for five minutes work.
But there is a problem, especially if you want your rings to be big. Take a close look at the rings that you have just created and at the rings in the picture below.

The red dots mark points where the rings appear out of nothing and disappear into nothing. These points are a direct result of using Photoshop’s Twirl Tool to create a circular material. Granted they are not very noticeable but they are noticeable and not at all realistic. Real rings just don’t work like that. While there may not be a quicker way to create rings for your planets, there are better ways.

My advice is if you are serious about your planet’s rings and your rings are going to be large and you come across a Photoshop tutorial that expounds the basic twirly ring methodology: ignore it. Having said that, I will point out that the rings used to illustrate this “not” tutorial were made using the swirly rings method.

Note: It has come to my attention that Internet Explorer is unable to display the numbers for the ordered list used to identify the individual steps in the tutorial. Obviously IE is developmentally challenged. Firefox has no difficulty displaying the numbers

Ad Astra, Jim

Image: Hubble Space Telescope image of N90 star forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud

For several years now the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere has sponsored an annual art contest for school children. The “Catch a Star 2007″ competition is sponsored by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the European Association for Astronomy Education (EAAE).

Right now you can visit the 2007 gallery and vote for your favorite pictures. There are five galleries:

• Age less than 10 years
• Age 10 and 11 years
• Age 12 and 13 years
• Age 14 and 15 years
• Age 16 years and older

Voting is a factor in the awarding of prizes. The winners will be announced at the “Science on Stage 2″ international science teaching festival in Grenoble France, April 2-6 2007, and will be posted on the “Catch a Star” website. So go check out the Catch a Star! 2007 Gallery and vote for your favorite entries.

In the Age less than 10 years gallery, some of my favorite pictures were In the Space by Matas, Meteor by Samantha, and Black Hole by Matthew. In the Age 10 and 11 years gallery, my favorite was Solar Corona by Alexey. In the Age 12 and 13 years gallery, I liked Mysterious comet by Lazar and Solar System by Swati. As it turns out, the Age 14 and 15 years gallery was my favorite overall. My favorites here were Mars by Daria, Planet by Juste, and Galaxy by Dibyajyoti. Lastly in the Age 16 years and older gallery, I liked Sapere aude! by Agnieszka. Strange but I felt that this gallery, which should have had the best entries, was actually the weakest.

So be sure to check out some children’s visions of our universe at the Catch a Star! 2007 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

Scene from Le Voyage Dans La Lune

I just discovered the SciFi DriveIn and it’s collection of old, old science fiction movies, serials, and non-fiction predictions of the future. It’s great to be able to watch these old classics online - though you’re going to need a high speed connection.

The first video I watched was in the section labeled Misc which is actually the most interesting as it consists of a selection of old non-fiction videos. Leave it to Roll-oh! was an entertaining look at the future of robots with an excursion into the importance of machines in everyday life.

Next was The Big Bounce, a film about Project Echo. Echo was an inflated aluminum coated balloon 10 stories tall that was launched packed inside a 26 inch sphere. Once in orbit, transmissions were aimed at Echo from New Jersey, bounced off, and were received in Goldstone CA.

Project Echo balloon inflated in its hanger

I watched this video with interest as one of the few memories I have of my father, who passed away while I was still a child, was his taking me into the back yard to watch Echo 2 as it passed overhead. Echo 2 was launched into an 85.5-deg inclination orbit on January 25, 1964.

Heading over to the Serials section, I turned my neurons off and watched Radar Men From the Moon: Moon Rocket featuring Commando Cody who, with his trusty but aerodynamically impossible jet-pack backpack, must stop an invasion of the Earth. Yep, human agents employed by the evil lunar dictator are using an atomic ray to wreck havoc and prepare the way for an invasion from the moon.

Finally I headed over to the Movies section and was able to watch for the first time Le Voyage Dans La Lune in its entirety. This classic science fiction short was made in 1902 by Georges Melies and is generally considered to be the first science fiction movie. The movie was chock full of special effects. My favorite effect had to be the bonking of the moon men who, upon being whacked, vanished in a puff of smoke.

Earthrise over a bizarre lunar landscape.

What I found most fascinating about the movie was Melies’ depiction of the lunar surface, shown above. It reminded me somewhat of the lunar features that illustrated the classic James Nasmyth and James Carpenter book “The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite”, first published in 1874. It must be said that those depictions are far more naturalistic than Melies’.

Get yourself some popcorn, get comfortable, and take a trip over to the SciFi DriveIn for some old time sci-fi.

Ad Astra, Jim