Bang Universe

The Complete History of the Universe

STARMUS PRESS RELEASE

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PRESS RELEASE

“Brian May has landed in the Canary Islands to participate in the third STARMUS festival. The festival celebrates Astronomy and Music, and May, a founder member of the STARMUS board, brings his talents to both. This time he has introduced new devices to the stereoscopic world including his latest creation, the Owl Virtual Reality Kit (based on the highly successful OWL 3-D viewer) and a new pocket version of the viewer, the LITE OWL. In addition, May, with the help of his London Stereoscopic Company colleagues, presented a special 12 minute stereoscopic journey into space, entitled “Horizons”. This 3-D experience was offered not on a screen, but as an intimate one-to-one app on smartphones, viewed in 3-D in OWL VR kits, and enjoyed by over 1,000 attendees at the festival. The sound track is a solo guitar piece which Brian recorded on tour with Kerry Ellis in Zlin, Czech Republic.

This year’s STARMUS festival is a tribute to Stephen Hawking, and Brian has dedicated his mesmerising 3-D film to H

JOIN BRIAN MAY FOR A STEREOSCOPIC ADVENTURE IN SPACE

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European Astrofest takes place 5 and 6 February 2016, Kensington Conference & Events Centre, London. Tickets

Brian confirmed as speaker for Friday afternoon session:
A history of astro stereo photography – illustrated with full screen 3-D projection
Brian May, London Stereoscopic Company

Brian with planet

Dr Brian May will bring a new dimension to the conference programme at European AstroFest this year when he takes the audience on a stereoscopic adventure into space. Using cutting-edge 3D projection technology, Brian will explain how stereo photography has been used to capture the wonders of the Universe, from Victorian-era images of the Moon to present day space probes exploring the far-flung regions of our Solar System.

Although best known for his musical talents, Brian has a life-long interest in astronomy and stereoscopic imaging. He was named a science collaborator on the New Horizons Pluto mission and has helped process 3D images from the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission, exploring comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Brian is a director of the London Stereoscopic Company which publishes stereo cards and books that can be enjoyed using the patented OWL viewer he designed.

Brian’s presentation is at 4:50pm on Friday 5 February. To book your conference pass and to see the full programme visit the European AstroFest website.

Get tips on how to view this stereo image from the London Stereoscopic Company.

ROSETTA’S COMET – NEW STEREO WITH JETS !

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New stereoscopic portrait of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko from images captured by Rosetta’s ‘Navcam’ camera.

Comet 67P stereo

For parallel free-viewing or use a stereoscope such as a London Stereoscopic Company OWL viewer. For information on stereo viewing please click here

Photo Details:

Left image: taken April 28, 2015, 05:27:04, at a distance of 150.9 km from the comet’s centre.

Right image: taken April 27, 2015, 16:56:15, at a distance of 134.2 km from the comet’s centre.

Released: Friday 23 October 2015
Source: Rosetta NAVCAM Archive Image Browser operated by the European Space Agency (ESA)

The component images for this stereo pair are to be found in the Rosetta NAVCAM archive image browser, where the Rosetta team release all these images to the public around six months after they are taken. The browser contains thousands of great images to explore.

In this picture we are looking at the 67P Comet three and a half months before perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun, so its activity was not yet at maximum.

We see the large ‘lobe’ of the comet (with the Imhotep region in darkness) looming in the foreground, and the smaller lobe well-lit behind it. In processing, we have done some compression of intensities to enhance the faint jets which are here seen forming the comet’s coma, while keeping the highlight detail on the nucleus intact. The 3-D image positively locates the jet activity, even right in the foreground, evidently emanating from the dark part of the large lobe which faces us.

We particularly liked this stereo, and gave it the ‘full polish treatment’. In addition to fine tuning the alignment and optimising levels, the shadows needed to be fixed. In the twelve and a half hours between exposures, which has given us a perfect baseline for great stereo detail, Comet 67P has rotated enough with respect to the Sun for the shadows to have significantly moved. If these discrepancies are left in the stereo image, our eyes are troubled by ‘retinal rivalry’ – ie conflict of information getting to the brain from our two eyes. The only way to sort this out is by individually copying the shadow shapes from the left image to the right, or vice versa, by hand. Each ‘patch’ has to be morphed to match the surface it’s being attached to, so the 3-D shape of the terrain is not disturbed, to keep the final image as ‘real’ as possible.

In twelve and a half hours, the jets have not perceptibly changed, and their three-dimensional structure in space seen here is completely real. It’s a rare chance to get an informative glimpse of the 3-D structure of a coma at short range, showing the way jets apparently orientate themselves perpendicular to the surface of the nucleus they emerge from, and stream out for some way in straight lines.

 

Credits: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM, CC BY-SA IGO 3.0

Stereo created by Claudia Manzoni and Brian May using these images in the Rosetta archive image browser :

http://imagearchives.esac.esa.int/picture.php?/29025/category/119
http://imagearchives.esac.esa.int/picture.php?/29030/category/119

 

Big thanks to Rosetta mission boss Matt Taylor for his help and approval, and to Joel Parker for his continued help in locating suitable image pairs.

Bri

ROSETTA ON FIRE !

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Free-view this parallel stereo image (help is here) or view it in your patent London Stereoscopic Company OWL stereoscope !

Rosetta On Fire

Creds: ESA/ROSETTA/NAVCAM, Matt Taylor, Bernhard Geiger.  Stereo by BM. 

This pair of images was kindly thrown to me by Rosetta mission boss Matt Taylor himself (and colleague Bernhard Geiger) – as a challenge, I guess ! 

Unlike the last Rosetta stereo on this Soapbox, derived from the very high quality Narrow Angle Camera of the Osiris science instrument, this time we’re looking at the output of Rosetta’s wider angle navigation camera – and there was some noise and disturbance to deal with – but this is an unusual view of Comet 67P.  From this angle, as the amazing Rosetta probe, directed from ESA Rosetta Mission Control on Earth, passes along a trajectory some 208 miles from the comet, we see the comet ‘top down’, and it looks like a burning cinder in the sky.  Of course it’s not burning, but this is close to the warmest it will get in this orbit, around +30 or so degrees Centigrade, since it’s close to its Perihelion (13th August), seen on August 8th, around a month ago.  We’re looking at a side-on view of the sunlit part of the object, also giving us a view of the dark side of the comet.  The unlit portion of the comet’s surface is very dark, and we wouldn’t see it at all except for the fact that it’s silhouetted against part of the dusty coma. With the magic of 3-D, however, now that these two images are suitably aligned, we can clearly make out the C67P’s three-dimensional shape, its two ‘lobes’ one behind the other in our line of sight.  There’s also evidence here for the ever-changing pattern in the eruptions from its surface as it warms up.  Left of centre we can see a jet in the left image ‘flashing’ in our three-dimensional view, indicating that a jet was present when the left hand image was captured, but not the right.  

The times logged for the two component images are 

2015 08 12 T 09 05 03   and 
2015 08 12 T 09 24 52   

So about 20 minutes between these exposures.   At its speed in the comet’s frame of reference of around 2 miles per hour, in this time it’s covered about two thirds of a mile, and so this is the baseline of this stereo pair.   My sincere thanks to Matt for making this account scientifically bullet-proof.  

Cheers 

Bri 

NASA – WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I WAS THERE

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Here’s the link to the NASA page showing what happened when I was there.

NASA.GOV
Rock Star/Astrophysicist Dr. Brian May Goes Backstage With New Horizons
21 July 2015

Enjoy !

Pluto in a Minute: Dr. Brian May Shows Us How To Really See Pluto
https://youtu.be/E-zurr9PHKg

Brian at APL - stereo

Captured in my last hour at APL, Maryland. With Pluto stereo of course !

[Photo by Kyle Cassidy – The official photographer at NASA]


Nice Slate gallery of New Horizons Pluto Space Team.

http://kylecassidy.smugmug.com/Other/Pluto-New-Horizons-Scientists/50715780_sBQM7z#!i=4214583897&k=RBfTMnd

Bri

Brian at APL, Maryland

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The official photographer at NASA took this stereo of me … 

Not bad ! 

And that’s the first high quality stereo pic of PLUTO – EVER ! in my hands … 

LOOK !  Pluto !   Four and a half Light Hours away ! 

Pluto last before flyby

Bri

FIRST HIGH QUALITY REAL STEREO IMAGE OF PLUTO

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First high quality REAL stereo image of Pluto.

I had an unforgettable 3 days with the amazing New Horizons team. I’m still ‘coming down’. Alan Stern, leader of the Science Team at APL in Laurel, Maryland, personally made sure I was treated like one of the family, as a collaborator, and I felt privileged to the nth degree.

I was, of course, as always, obsessed with finding stereoscopic opportunities while I was there, and the Gods of the Underworld must have been with me, because I was there when the first 2 by 2 mosaic full-planet picture was downloaded from the probe, and assembled into exactly the required highish res partner to the iconic ‘last-look’ photo which preceded the final fly-by. Baseline must be a few hundred thousand miles, but I’ll need to check that. Of course the New Horizons guys were already doing serious science on this image as it arrived, but I was able to assemble the two images to make the most satisfying stereo view I can ever remember making. I got some help making some prints on site, so I was able to show this 3-D to the entire team through the lenses of some OWLS I took over.

So this is definitely the first REAL high quality stereo image of Pluto in history. And we can say it’s officially NH approved !

No fiddling this time. The right image is the ‘last-look’ photo from 15th July, and the left image is the ‘two-by-two downloaded from NH on the 17th.

All I did was fine-adjust the orientations to match up, and match up the colouring by eye.

ENJOY !

Pluto last before flyby
Photos courtesy of NASA, stereo by Bri.

If you’ve been following the New Horizons mission closely, you’ll have seen Amy Teitel’s Pluto in a Minute videos. Well, before I left, we did one together, which I think will make you smile. It features this stereo view, so now you can see it as she saw it at that moment (we got a good ‘wow!’).

We’ll post up a link to that vid as soon as we have it.

Cheers

Bri

PLUTO ROCKS !!!

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I’m still reeling from the ridiculous week we just had, combating a ridiculous piece of skulduggery from our Government.

What a waste of decent people’s time. But it is done, for now. And done well, for now, methinks.

I missed my rendezvous with the Pluto NewHorizons team in Washington DC because I thought the threat to our wildlife (actually ALL our wildlife, as it turns out) in the UK was more of a priority. But now I get to go and celebrate with the NH team who have just successfully pulled off a nine-year project to rendezvous with that little PLANET at the edge of the classical Solar System. I’m well excited. I’m ready to meet lots of great space scientists that I’ve previously only known through E-mails – and sift through data with them. Yes, I feel very privileged. In these things, like my dear ol’ adopted uncle, Patrick Moore, I’m an enthusiastic amateur, since nobody is paying me ! But I’m well aware millions would pay dearly for such a journey … fulfilling many schoolboy dreams.

As an amateur image processor, this is what I put together in 3-D on the plane … a fanciful fabrication, but based on the latest NH pics, and I think it’s the first time it’s been done. A speculative look at what it would have been like to be standing near the New Horizons probe as it flashed past Pluto and its companion Charon towards deep Kuiper Belt country. Yes, if you’re not familiar with 3-D Free-viewing, please find an OWL or other stereo viewer and enjoy this ! That’s reddish pink Pluto in the foreground with its now familiar giant heart-shaped feature, and Charon behind, showing its massive chasm and brown rocky terrain. NOBODY has ever seen Pluto like this. And it will be 10 years at least til anybody gets anything better, of course, because it takes that amount of time to get there. OK – please don’t write to me and tell me the orientation of the bodies is wrong. I know ! But it’s not far from reality, if you were a giant with eyes a million miles apart.

Pluto and Charon

Bri

PLANET PLUTO BECKONS !

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Yes, I still call it a planet ! Because nobody’s really satisfied me with a good enough reason to change my feelings about this. When I was very young – probably 7 or 8 years old – my Dad taught me the sequence of planets in order from the Sun outwards :

Mercury-Venus-Earth-Mars-Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus-Neptune-Pluto !

And it still rings in my head as strongly as the songs that captured my thoughts in those magical days – Maybe Baby, Oh Boy, That’ll Be The Day, Lucille, Jailhouse Rock …

So for me, a spacecraft arriving at this farthest-flung outpost of the Sun’s family of captive rocks – the first time EVER mankind has achieved this – is something beyond thrilling. I may have the chance to sit with the fathers of this amazing craft, named New Horizons, in 10 days time, as it passes close by this enigmatic, bitterly cold world.

I always thought of it as ‘icy’, so in my mind, it was white or grey and shiny. But the pictures the New Horizons craft has already sent us, as it approaches the rendezvous, tell us that Pluto is actually a RED planet – a counterpart to Mars in its appearance, but for different reasons. It’s highly likely that when we see those first EVER images of Pluto viewed from only a few thousand miles away next week, we’ll see something completely unpredicted.

Meanwhile a nice animation has been created of the spinning planet by a scientist called Bjorn Jonsson – compiled from the best currently available data (mainly from New Horizons).

It’s a fascination of mine to create stereo images out of rotation movies. And in this I have been very much assisted and enabled by my pal Claudia Manzoni. Here are some stereos derived from the Jonsson model.

I think it’s specially appropriate to share these stereos right now – because very soon we will likely have images which will make these redundant for ever.

So please dust your OWLS off (or get ready to ‘Free-View’) and … ENJOY !

This first stereo shows those four dark spots in a line abreast which have made a deep impression on observers in recent days.

Pluto 01

And this is a composite of four different aspects of the planet (OK – Dwarf Planet!) in quadrature.

Pluto 02

The red dot is there to help us align the eyes correctly to see the four spheres in 3-D. Relax the eyes, allow the two red dots to drift together and ‘fuse’ into one, and you will see all around it the four solid views of Pluto.

It’s hard to be sure at this time whether we are looking at a hard surface here, or the tops of clouds, or a combination of both, but I’m sure all will be revealed on 14th – 15th July.

Watch this space. As with the Rosetta mission, the improvement in quality that’s about to happen is expected to be DRAMATIC!!!

Bri