SPACE ARTVISUALIZING THE UNSEEN

Sophia Ferguson-Stuart

Introduction – What is Space Art?

The depiction of astronomical phenomena ranging from direct observations to depictions of future space exploration.

I want to particularly look at the process of depicting distant, hard to view objects.

These are particularly interesting as the artists needs to imagine what they could look like while still taking in to account all the latest science on them. An example would be Brown dwarfs.

Chapter 1 – What sort of images does astronomy produce?

The objects being viewed are so distant that it’s impossible with current technology to produce clear images of them.

Many objects are only visible at wavelengths outside the visible range.

(www2.ifa.hawaii.edu)

The resulting images are often difficult to interpret to any one outside of astronomy. They don’t show what would be visible to the human eye but reveal what is invisible.

This is where space art comes in.

(www.space.com)

Chapter 2 – Science for artists

In order to produced informed images it’s important for the artist to have a working knowledge of astronomy.

(Chesley Bonestell, View of Saturn from Titan)

Going to look at what sort of sources of information are available to the artist.

What do artists need to consider

Chapter 3 – Turning the art on the science

One of the significant technical challenges faced in Space art is the depiction of light.

Though space is dark it is full of star emitting light, darker objects that glow and reflective objects. These may all be opaque, translucent or even transparent.

This provides a massive technical challenge for the artist.

(Greg Martin)

The other major challenge facing artists is producing interesting and effective compositions.

To produce visual interest does the artist pile in visual interest or do they emphasise the emptiness of space

Chapter 4 – Visual Conventions

Tendency towards standardization in depicting various objects.

Many artists working this field use the same software packages, (Photoshop and 3d Studio Max), and learn from similar tutorials from sites such as Solar Voyager.

(http://news.nationalgeographic.com)

The importance of getting a good balance between the astronomy and the art.

(NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Conclusion

Space art is an ongoing conversation between astronomy and art. It is continuously developing and changing as new discoveries are made in Astronomy.

I hope to be able to make a contribution to this conversation with my own work.

Bibliography

LeBlanc, Francis; An Introduction to Astrophysics; Wiley; 2010.

Lui, Michael. C; Crossing The Brown Dwarf Desert Using Adaptive Optics: A Very Close L Dwarf Companion to the Nearby Solar Analog HR 7672; 2002

Martin, Greg; Visualizing Heaven; CAP Journal; issue 5; January 2009.

www.capjournal.com www.space.com www.solarvoyager.com