Hubble spots jewel box star cluster October 29, 2009

 

From Wired Science:

This stunning image of the Kappis Crucis Cluster, nicknamed the “Jewel Box,” was one of the last gifts from a retiring camera on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Just before NASA brought the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 back to Earth in mid-2009, it snapped this photo of the core of the NGC 4755 star cluster, the first comprehensive image of an open galactic cluster taken in multiple wavelengths. Using seven different filters, Hubble captured the Jewel Box cluster in far ultraviolet to near-infrared light. The different colors of the stars — from pale blue to bright ruby red — result from their differing intensities at various ultraviolet wavelengths.

Just bright enough to be seen from Earth with the naked eye, the Jewel Box was given its name by English astronomer John Herschel in the 1830’s, who thought the sparkling blue and red stars resembled expensive jewelry. Like most open star clusters, the Jewel Box is made up of an array of sister stars, all formed from the same cloud of gas and dust with similar ages and chemical make-up. Located about 6,400 light-years away, near the Southern Cross in the constellation of Crux, the Jewel Box contains roughly 100 stars.

Besides Hubble, two other telescopes have also recently captured new images of the Jewel Box. A wide-field photo taken by the 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla observatory in Chile shows the multi-colored cluster surrounded by thousands of neighboring stars. A close-up from ESO’s Very Large Telescope captures the stars in detail and ranks as one of the best images of the Jewel Box ever taken from the ground. Both images can be seen in the composite photo below.

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Image 1: NASA/ESA and Jesús Maíz Apellániz/Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain. Image 2: ESO, NASA/ESA, Digitized Sky Survey 2 and Jesús Maíz Apellániz/Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain.

high-tech art hunt October 6, 2009

From New York Times:

If you believe, as Maurizio Seracini does, that Leonardo da Vinci’s greatest painting is hidden inside a wall in Florence’s city hall, then there are two essential techniques for finding it. As usual, Leonardo anticipated both of them.

First, concentrate on scientific gadgetry. After spotting what seemed to be a clue to Leonardo’s painting left by another 16th-century artist, Dr. Seracini led an international team of scientists in mapping every millimeter of the wall and surrounding room with lasers, radar, ultraviolet light and infrared cameras. Once they identified the likely hiding place, they developed devices to detect the painting by firing neutrons into the wall.

“Leonardo would love to see how much science is being used to look for his most celebrated masterpiece,” Dr. Seracini said, gazing up at the wall where he hopes the painting can be found, and then retrieved intact. “I can imagine him being fascinated with all this high-tech gear we’re going to set up.”

More at NYT:

Maurizio Seracini, on scaffolding, and the “Battle of Marciano” mural.

Imaging molecules October 5, 2009

This isn’t so much about the art behind imaging molecules (although it is kind of pretty) but more about the technology behind the camera that took the image. This is actually an older story, and I’ve been debating whether it’s Art of Science worthy, but frankly, it’s just amazing that we’re finally able to image something as small as a molecule, so it’s in based solely on coolness.

From BBC News:

The detailed chemical structure of a single molecule has been imaged for the first time, say researchers.

The physical shape of single carbon nanotubes has been outlined before, using similar techniques – but the new method even shows up chemical bonds.

Understanding structure on this scale could help in the design of many things on the molecular scale, particularly electronics or even drugs.

The IBM researchers reported their findings in the journal Science in August of this year.

It is the same group that in July reported the feat of measuring the charge on a single atom.

In both cases, a team from IBM Research Zurich used what is known as an atomic force microscope or AFM.

Their version of the device acts like a tiny tuning fork, with one of the prongs of the fork passing incredibly close to the sample and the other farther away.

When the fork is set vibrating, the prong nearest the sample will experience a minuscule shift in the frequency of its vibration, simply because it is getting close to the molecule.

Comparing the frequencies of the two prongs gives a measure of just how close the nearer prong is, effectively mapping out the molecule’s structure.

Top 10 Tech Influences on Rock & Roll October 1, 2009

Technology has shaped how we make, hear, and share music. “Rock simply wouldn’t have rocked without electric guitars, Marshall amp stacks, the Vox Box, amplifiers capable of projecting the music to the crowd, or stage effects that helped create a spectacle.”

This is not my list, but from PC World (you wonder if they might  be a little bias?). They’ve got everything from Beatles concerts to music videos.

#8: The Wall

One thing they forgot: the Record Player! They included the synthesizer but not the record player? Geez!

Word Clock September 29, 2009

A cool, if perhaps slightly involved, DIY: A clock that shows the time using words, not numbers. Great for the numeriphobe in your life!

This is actually a pretty cool piece of art and technology.

MAKE subscriber Doug took up the challenge to re-make the word clock he saw here a few weeks ago, and wrote in to share his project with us. He built the front panel using an etched PCB (no laser cutter required!), and constructed a circuit board to illuminate the proper display sections using LEDs. Instructions and board layouts are available on his Instructable.

Free Museum Day tomorrow September 25, 2009

September 26th is Annual Museum Day, and lots of museums and parks are offering free admission in celebration. Read on for more:

On Sept. 26, as part of the fifth annual Museum Day program, Smithsonian magazine has convinced more than 1,200 other museums, zoos, and arts and cultural attractions across the country to also welcome visitors for free.

In California, you’ll can use your Museum Day admission card to visit the classic cars displayed at the California Automobile Museum in Sacramento (regular adult admission: $8), in New York City you can use your pass at the South Street Seaport Museum (regular adult admission: $10), and in Dallas, your pass will get you into the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza (regular admission: $13.50), which explores the assassination and legacy of President John F. Kennedy. 

To see the full list of all the participating museums so you can plan your day, visit the Smithsonian’s Museum Day 2009 Web site and poke around. Be ready to be a bit overwhelmed.

Artsy gizmo for your digital camera September 18, 2009

A Wired product review: Articulating Lens Lets You Art Up Pics on the Fly

If you’re a photo student, chances are you balk at contemporary digital photography’s over-processed, airbrushed, way-too-clean aesthetic. You want to be real, damn it! And you probably want to create pictures that have the dramatic effects of a view camera’s tilt-and-shift selective focus and the organic randomness of plastic shooters like the Holga. Awesome! Consider taking the Lensbaby Composer for a spin.

Essentially a digital SLR lens that’s fitted into a ball-and-socket-style housing, the Composer also has interchangable optics: a single lens, double lens, plastic lens and pinhole/zone plate combo can be swapped in and out depending on the photographic effect you want to achieve. Depending on aperture these four options yield images that range from fairly sharp with a large sweet spot (double glass) all the way to the very gauzy and ethereal (pinhole).

Before you get too excited at the prospect of churning out dynamic images on the fly, you’ve got to understand that the Lensbaby experience is a creative one and requires a lot of manual tweaking. … Read more of the review.

Lensbaby in action

Something to keep you occupied: hidden circles illusion September 17, 2009

I like optical illusions, although I tend to spot them right away. Maybe I just have goofy eyes?

From Bad Astronomy, who apparently stole it from Richard Wiseman’s site:

Anyone know any other good optical illusions sites?

*Edit*: Here’s a recently published article on Seed Magazine that discusses some of the science behind optical illusions.

Stratophotography September 15, 2009

No, the title does not reflect any case of dyslexia on my part. I decided rather than focus on Astrophotography (which I tend to do), today I’m featuring Stratophotography. And, on Wired they’re featuring a DIY success story for taking your own strato-photos. From Wired:

For $148 in off-the-shelf parts, two Massachusetts Institute of Technology students have taken pictures from the edge of space.

Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh’s DIY dirigible launched on September 2 from Sturbridge, Massachusetts and rose 18 miles before popping. It was recovered, photographs intact, upon landing in a nearby construction site.

Team Icarus ready for launch

 

According to the team’s website, there is a third space-photographer: Eric Newton. The team ”will be posting a step-by-step illustrated guide on how to do a launch for $150 shortly. Also, we will be posting a Youtube video of the time-lapse photographs,” any day now (no date on their news bulletin, so not sure if “today” actually means “today” if you catch my drift).

They also give credit to some other launches that have come before.

Just a feel-good, space story for all you avid DIYers or space lovers.

Color photos from 1909 Russia September 10, 2009

These are amazing! This guy was creating color photos at the turn on the last century.

self portrait

“The photographs of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) offer a vivid portrait of a lost world–the Russian Empire on the eve of World War I and the coming revolution. His subjects ranged from the medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia, to the railroads and factories of an emerging industrial power, to the daily life and work of Russia’s diverse population.

“Between 1909-1912, and again in 1915, he completed surveys of eleven regions, traveling in a specially equipped railroad car provided by the Ministry of Transportation.

“We know that Prokudin-Gorskii intended his photographic images to be viewed in color because he developed an ingenious photographic technique in order for these images to be captured in black and white on glass plate negatives, using red, green and blue filters. He then presented these images in color in slide lectures using a light-projection system.”

I am utterly blown away every time I look at these. The technology that went in to making these photos, and the amazing artistry of the photos themselves. Plus the fact that nobody figured out a similar system or other method for color photos until decades later. WOW!

Nomadic Kazakhs on the Steppe