Jupiter is Beautiful too… December 18, 2008
Posted by stephenv2 in : the film , add a comment“Outside In” focuses on Saturn but Jupiter is pretty awesome too. Hubble caught this great photograph. Enjoy.
Jupiter & Moon
Large underground bodies of water very likely on Enceladus December 17, 2008
Posted by stephenv2 in : news, saturn cassini, space stuff, the film , add a commentIf you need a break from yet more economic doom and gloom, Cassini keeps turning amazing evidence for liquid water on Enceladus. This moon could end up being the most famous place in our solar system one day.
Read more here.
Size Matters - quick thoughts on Blu-Ray & Giant Screen December 11, 2008
Posted by stephenv2 in : filmmaking, musings, the film , add a commentSo, I just got a nice but cheap projector, the Panasonic AX-200U, for “Outside In”. It happens to be really cheap if you buy via Microsoft Live Cashback (cost me $800 shipped) and has a couple of great features for proofing “Outside In” giant screen shots - smoothscreen to eliminate pixelation effects even if you get close and outstanding color and contrast for an LCD. Even better, it has a high brightness mode for giving presentations related to the film that will start in earnest next year. Of course, it does not have the near resolution of 15/70 film but I proof resolution on high-rez LCDs.
Upon hooking it up and projecting a hidef movie (”Blade Runner”) on a 92″ portable screen, the overwhelming power of big screen and high quality hits you like a ton of bricks. Movies should be big and giant screen films should be, well giant. I recently saw a demo of IMAX’s digital projection system in NYC at the GSCA conference. It was a 2K system and I was sitting about 1/3″ of the way back in the theater. It was a little underwhelming to say the least after coming from the Sony IMAX at Lincoln Square, the second largest IMAX (film) screen in the world.
The digital IMAX screen was fairly big for a multiplex, but small by giant screen standards. My 92″ inch gives almost the same apparent size. The digital IMAX system suffered from pixelation artifacts that were very distracting on diagonal, high contrast lines (like a house roof) - visible even towards the back of the theater. My Panasonic projector has zero pixelation, even walking up and pressing your face against the screen. Result is a “sharper” yet “smoother” picture than what I saw with IMAX’s digital projection. My speculation is that IMAX, in an effort to brighten the image, has over-cooked their projectors lumen-wise and/or has other circuitry issues. The IMAX system had a bit better black levels, color was about equal and contrast was a wash - side by side viewing would be required.
Of course, my setup could not fill a big room, but for me, I would rank my cheap home projection system more enjoyable to watch than IMAX digital, but way below the film IMAX at the Sony theater. This is the problem IMAX has - I don’t think until they get to at least 8k projectors that are bright and beautiful enough to nearly match 15/70 film on a true giant screen film, can they really be “digital”. Of course, business-wise, everyone else has been rolling out digital projection and they could not be seen as “behind”. But they may paint themselves into a corner with too many of these 2k digital “IMAX” theaters and not real giant screen digital technology.
Today, this technology does not appear to exist. It’s not likely that IMAX has the money, R&D expertise and resources to develop digital projection technology, especially that can leap the Sony’s, JVCs, Christies etc. of the world. For “Outside In”, I’m not worried though. It will play fine on anything from a blu-ray disc to digital IMAX to even 35mm film. But I know right now, it will look best as an 8K master carefully output to 15/70 film and shown in a “real” IMAX theatre like the giant screen at Sony’s IMAX in NYC.
Another Spacecraft you may not have heard of December 4, 2008
Posted by stephenv2 in : musings, news, saturn cassini, space stuff , add a commentWhen I started working on this project, I was amazed by how few people knew that the Cassini spacecraft was at Saturn, and horrified to find that almost no-one outside of the space field knew about the Huygens lander on Titan.
Another spacecraft doing cool stuff is Venus Express, currently orbiting our neighbor, turning up some interesting stuff about the climate on Venus. Venus is an fascinating if hellish world. Greenhouses gasses and global warming run a muck on Venus. It’s a goldmine of information about how climate change works.
There tends to be a lot of acrimonous back and forth between climate change skeptics and alarmists. Personally, I think it’s huge waste of time and energy that should be focused on understanding every planetary climate - Earth, Venus, Mars, Titan etc.
We should be spending ten times more - if not a hundred times more on understanding how planetary climates, environments and ecosystems work. There is still so much we don’t know and yet we argue endlessly about that the right solution is despite our ignorance.
So, instead of arguing or blogging about global warming, spend your time writing your representatives asking them to increase funding for planetary exploration and research, both earth and other planets as the most critical function of energy and climate policy. That’s where the real solutions lie.
Humanity as group and humans as individuals usually get in hot water making decisions in ignorance or with wrong or misleading information and conclusions. Let’s not repeat those mistakes yet again.
Puffy Stars and New Planet - our future in 5 billion or so December 1, 2008
Posted by stephenv2 in : musings, news, saturn cassini, space stuff , add a commentThis is pretty cool - yet another new planet discovered and yes, not a big news story. But one of these days, there is a great chance that one of this little blurbs will be a precursor to the biggest news story ever…
But back to this. They found a “puffed-up” red giant star with a big planet still orbiting out of reach. In 5 billion years or so, this is very likely our solar system. Our sun will expand into a red giant, eating or burning Earth to a crisp. But the Saturn system may be nice and toasty - if life is there on Enceladus or Titan, it may expand onto the surface with the extra heat. If not there, it may start because of the added heat.
Food for thought about the ultimate purpose of all things…
“Still Life” wins award at Carrboro Film Festival November 24, 2008
Posted by stephenv2 in : filmmaking, news, technogeek stuff , add a commentA few months ago, I did a camera test for “Outside In” on creating motion from a DSLR still camera. The test turned out so well, I turned it into a short film “Still Life“. A 6 minute section of “Outside In” will feature a sequence showcasing the human timeline using still photographs of human actors and many other still photographs against the the dome of the night sky above.
It will be pretty complicated to shoot and will probably burn out the shutter of high-end DSLR, so I wanted to test the method well first. “Still Life” took about 7000 stills to make (plus a week of rendering time to create the motion). I submitted it to the Carrboro Film Festival where it was accepted. The screening was yesterday - the festival is a great event and worth attending. “Still Life” was very well received and won an award for “Best Technical Achievement in Filmmaking”. They also screened the Outside In trailer, which was nice.
For those not in the area, an HD version of still life is here.
Nice article on Enceladus November 22, 2008
Posted by stephenv2 in : articles, news, saturn cassini, space stuff , add a commentCaroyln Porco, head of the Cassini Imaging team, has a comprehensive story on the wonder of Enceladus which is slowly becoming the real highlight of “Outside In”. Read it here.
First Photographs of Extrasolar Planets - but no Headlines November 13, 2008
Posted by stephenv2 in : musings, news, space stuff , add a commentWhile there has been plenty of circumstantial evidence of extrasolar planets, but there has never been an actual photograph of one.
Until now.
Huge news of course. Except there are no elections or bad economies on these planets.
Or are there?
We don’t know. And we won’t find out unless people care. And people won’t ever have the chance to care unless they know they exist.
Photographs, despite all the modern age of Photoshop trickier, is still how we know something exists. We put them on our desk, on our refridgarators, by our bedside.
So here’s a photograph by the every-amazing Hubble of a planet around another star.
Stick it on your fridge…
click for larger
UPDATE: It’s actually a featured story on foxnews.com. After checking again the major news sites online, lo and behold, they alone of ABC, CNN, NBC, BBC, NYTIMES & USATODAY featured it.
Cassini Buzzes Enceladus October 10, 2008
Posted by stephenv2 in : the film , add a commentWith a presidential election and global financial crisis, this has zero chance of news, but it Cassini just completed a ultra-close flyby of the very interesting moon of Saturn, Enceladus.
Buzzing just 25 kilometers above the surface at 40,000 kph (which is an amazing feat), they topped even that by successfully sampling the icy jets that shoot from the surface where there might be reservoirs of liquid water or even an underground ocean.
The first RAW images are down and look great as usual and much more to come. News, blogs can be found here:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm
The 3 Million Dollar Overhead Projector
Posted by stephenv2 in : news, space stuff , add a commentI don’t much like politics or politicians (I’m registered “unaffiliated”), so you won’t find much here about that but I had to chime in on this. For those that suffered through the tedium of the most recent presidential debate, you might have noticed McCain harping about a “3 million dollar overhead projector” for a planetarium. I figured there was more to the story and there is.
At least it might get a bit of media coverage on the issue of spending to support science in an entertaining fashion.