Posted on 04/13/2007 12:09:15 AM PDT by neverdem
Sometimes the line to get into the Imax theater at the American Museum of Natural History seems long enough to stretch all the way out to other planets.
Now it does.
This weekend “Beyond,” a one-year exhibition of more than 30 large-format photographs of Earth’s planetary neighbors, opens in the museum’s Imax Gallery, a corridor by the theater that is also a pathway to the Rose Center for Earth and Space.
Michael Benson, a writer, photographer and filmmaker, created the stunning series of pictures from the enormous archives of images taken over the years by robotic explorers of the solar system.
Anyone with an interest in astronomy and an Internet connection can find the raw images at sites like www.nasa.gov, and NASA occasionally releases photographs of breathtaking beauty. But the artist’s eye can transform what started as scientific data, and even the best of NASA’s pictures on a newspaper page or a screen do not give a hint of the richness of these prints.
Beginning in 1995 Mr. Benson spent years sifting through hundreds of thousands of photographs, looking for those that offered an aesthetic punch. He then painstakingly combined images, using digital tools like Photoshop, to eliminate dropouts and blurs from individual photos beamed back across millions of miles of space. A lovely picture of Europa, a moon of Jupiter, gliding in front of the swirling atmosphere of that planet, for example, is a blend of some 70 frames sent back by Voyager.
The images come from as far back as 1970s explorations by space-faring robots like Mariner 10, the Viking Orbiters and Voyager. More recent ones come from Cassini, which is sending data back from the outer planets, and the plucky rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which are still motoring around the surface of Mars. Many are drawn from...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“Beyond” continues through April 6, 2008, at the Imax Gallery at the American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West and 79th Street, (212) 769-5100, amnh.org.
Ping
BUMP!
Of course when it comes back as V’ger we’re all in big trouble...
Uncle Charlie, I think it’s too late for Rogaine.
Looks like an old grape stomper’s heel.
I. Must. Go. To. This. Exhibit.
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