Astro Art Internship

Stranded

It goes without saying that space is very, very big. There’s a point when trying to roll around the numbers and measurements in your head just returns an error message and a headache. And all of that space is filled with… well, nothing much, really. All the galaxies in the universe seem to be arranged into filaments situated on the edges of absolutely massive bubbles of vacuum. When faced with something so utterly incomprehensible, it’s hard to decide what is more terrifying: the voids of nothing or the unknown something that may or may not be there. My work, inspired by the Illustris Project’s simulations of the cosmic web, seeks to remind us all that we are all floating around in an abyss containing a structure that looks ominously like a spider’s web. While there may not be an actual galaxy-crushing spider lurking in our real cosmic web, there are still enough unknowns about our universe to make space unnerving. Be careful not to breathe too hard on this sculpture, or you might just dislodge a subatomic particle harboring 8 billion sapient lifeforms.

Inspiration: Illustris Simulation 

World Wide Webb

Watch Animation

A simplified visualization of the process the Near Infrared Camera sensor (NIRCAM) on the Webb telescope undergoes when a light photon is sensed. The different stages of the animation are as followed; the light is turned into electricity, then it is converted to radio signal, the signal is sent to earth, after that the radio waves are translated into numeric code, this code is then distributed to scientists in the form of a FITS file, and finally the scientist has to interpret the data to produce images. Enjoy the trip!

Spiral Eye

This artwork is a sculpture made of plaster, recycled glass and wood that was based on CubeViz data. The primary purpose of this artwork was to communicate Data in a visual and interesting way. To do this I selected a not-so understood visualisation tool- CubeViz. This program allows the viewer to see data, especially spectra to be analyzed more thoroughly. My art shows this by representing spectral data in a 3D way. The way I interpreted the data is that the higher the wavelength the more prominent it is whenever you examine it in CubeViz- therefore it would be the centerpiece and the highest point in the art work. In this art piece it was the circle in the middle. The glass used in the artwork represents the versatility of data analyzation with the tool and also adds visual texture to the piece. Furthermore the color pallete, although primarily faithful to the original image, was altered to a more purple centered palette in order to honor the infrared vision of James Webb.

To create the artwork I started by collecting glass bottles and peeling the labels off of them. I used paint thinner to take off the sticky residue of the labels. The bottles were broken afterwards and sorted into usable pieces which were primarily glass pieces that were large and in interesting shapes. The next step was creating a base that could hold the weight of glass and plaster so I decided to go with a solid plywood base reinforced with a wooden frame on the back. With a marker I traced a topographical map on the wooden board which I used to guide the subsequent sculpture with styrofoam. After the styrofoam was in the right place I secured it in place and went over it with plaster sheets and wetted it to create the basis of the sculpture. I mixed glass pieces with plaster to create a medium which I used to create the rest of the sculpture as well as using the rest of the glass on top to give the sculpture more texture. Once dried color was added through paint and buffing powder.

Light Curve Orchestra

Watch Animation

“Light Curve Orchestra” is an animation and song centered around light curves, and their visual conceptualization. Light curves are essentially just waveforms that are records of light put off by a celestial body over time. There’s no visual representation of light curves beyond their waveforms, so in this piece I set out with the goal in mind of creating some visual interpretation of this record-keeping of light paired with sonifications of these light curve waveforms. Combining my personal fascinations and existential dreads of space’s gargantuan emptiness with inspiration from deep-space images, the music came to represent the sweeping, massive expanse of the universe and the visuals communicated the busyness and beauty there is to find within it, along with showing how the volume of light correlates with the audio. The song itself is written around a core sonified light curve from a binary star system, accompanied by myself on a handful of instruments.

Spectroscopy — Behind the Images

Website: melofors.github.io

My vision for this project is to create a website that bridges the gap between the complex yet important topic of spectroscopy to the public, through a visual-based artistic website. My website aims to beautify spectroscopy as an art form. I first explain spectroscopy and why it is important, including interactive spectroscopy-related visuals. Embedded into user-friendly interfaces are normally complex scientific tools used for spectroscopy. I hope that this allows more people to learn and become interested in this interesting yet often ignored aspect of astronomy.

Creating my site involved basic HTML and CSS code, for structuring and styling, respectively. Online resources were used to research as well as grab visuals for my site, which have been credited as necessary. Photoshop and other tools were used to edit and create visuals. I was assisted by scientists at STScI to embed “jdaviz” tools into the site, including developers Kyle Conroy and Brian Cherinka.
 

The Dome

Download AR Experience | Watch Video of AR Walkthrough

My work is inspired by Stephan’s Quintet and draws from the description and image of the quintet found on the James Webb Telescope website. My goal was to imitate the experience of a planetarium in augmented reality (AR). I chose to focus solely on Stephan’s Quintet because it has distinct and easy to isolate elements that work well with the medium I chose. I love working in AR because of how portable and transient it is. You can take it with you and experience it anywhere. It doesn’t require physical materials despite how tangible and immersive it can feel. See the instructions for details on how to access the model, and please enjoy interacting with this AR experience.

Instructions

With the iPad: Pick up the iPad and use the camera to scan the QR Code. Click on the pop up for Adobe Aero, and point the camera at the ground. Once it says “surface found” tap the screen and turn up your volume before entering the dome!

With your phone: Download Adobe Aero from the app store, then follow the instructions for the iPad.

Script

Welcome to Stephan’s Quintet, seen here as captured by the James Webb Telescope.

Composed of more than 150 million pixels, this image composites data from the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) found on the telescope.

Data from the MIRI captures shock waves in shades of gold and orange. 

The NIRCam highlights stars in cool shades of blue and white.

Despite its name, some galaxies in the quintet are closer than others. Look up to see NGC 7320, which is 250 million light years closer to earth than the other galaxies.

I hope you enjoyed this tour of Stephan’s Quintet. 
Learn more at webbtelescope.org.

For many, the most interactive view of space is the glitzy, glamorous, and easily-digestible colorized images NASA publishes, the so-called "poster children" of space. For my internship here at STSci, I hoped to delve into a more scientific and astronomical perspective of space. As an artist, I hope to celebrate and uplift how scientists view space while using aesthetics and color to connect it to a general audience. My medium is acrylic and oil paint on canvas. 

Footprints of M105

"Footprints of M105," is inspired by the format of the MAST archive. In the MAST archive, you can view data from multiple missions of the same object. Each rectangular "footprint" represents an image of M105 or a surrounding area, creating an abstract, geometric view.

Wavelengths of NGC 5194

"Wavelengths of NGC 5194," explores how taking images in UV, visible light, and infrared warps the view of the same object.

Filters of NGC 3132

"Filters of NGC 3132," are supposed to be viewed together. They depict the same galaxy but show how different filters of James Webb alter an image.

Andromeda

"Andromeda," combines the ideas within my first and second pieces. It features footnotes, and each footnote represents a different wavelength of that data of Andromeda.

Messier I

Listen to Song

My piece is an EDM (electronic dance music) song inspired by Messier 1, more commonly known as the Crab Nebula. 
 
My goal was to create a sonic experience where it feels like the listener is directly experiencing the beauty of the Crab Nebula, by directly using data from the nebula in my song. At first, I tried to find sonifications from Crab Nebula light curves, but there were none, because there's so much dust around it that it makes for noisy and uninteresting data to turn into sound. After spending time deliberating on how to circumvent this issue, I got an idea. While I didn't expect to do this for a song, I made a python script using the Astronify package in order to turn telescope images of the Crab Nebula into sound. I then used techniques like granular synthesis, vocoding, and resampling to transform those sonifications into something harmonic, and musically enjoyable. 
 
I also wanted to make more general musical choices that reflect the nature and life of the Crab Nebula as well. For example, the beginning features a sound I synthesized that pulsates at a rate of around 30 times per second, because there is a pulsar at the center of the Crab Nebula, that "pulses" at around that rate. I also wanted to reflect the fact that this pulsar will slow down as it cools down and the gas around it saps its energy by slowing down the tempo over time. 
 

A Bubble and It’s Layers

This art piece was based on the Bubble Nebula. The Bubble Nebula caught my attention because of the fact that it is a bubble in space and I felt like that would also catch people’s attention because I believe not many people know that there is a bubble in space somewhere. I was inspired by glass paintings made popular back in the pandemic in 2021. I was looking at a picture of the Bubble Nebula and I noticed all the layers this image potentially had and I realized how good this would look on layers of glass. I did further research and found out that the Bubble Nebula is made of 3 major components, Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Nitrogen, all portrayed beautifully by the Hubble Telescope. The Hubble Telescope can portray these 3 elements with the colors green, red, and blue. Because of the Hubble’s ability to show visible light, it made the image much more colorful and beautiful so I decided to mainly portray the 3 elements with the primary colors, red for nitrogen, blue for oxygen, and yellow for hydrogen, on my glass painting since they are the most prominent in the original image. As for the process of making the paintings, I used regular craft paint and acrylic sheets since acrylic sheets offer more sturdiness so it won’t shatter as easily, I hope. Anyways, for this painting I had to work backwards in order to make the painting coordinate with itself. I first worked on the background and worked my way up. Part of the thought process with the way I placed my paint was thinking about where each element would be places. I figured the nitrogen build up would be more towards the background and the hydrogen more towards the forefront of the art piece. Lastly, I figured to add an additional layer to the painting, it being a more minimal layer with only the 3 primary colors, because I thought that I had gotten too carried away with making the art piece itself resemble the original photo I thought that I needed an extra layer to inform the viewer of what it’s originally supposed to represent.

Touchy Bubble

This art piece was created to have texture to give visually impaired people an art piece they can physically enjoy as well. I was inspired to make this piece by the many other art pieces I’ve seen on social media that include texture as well. Where it be by scraps of paper or adding sugar to their paints to give texture, I was inspired by all. I had a tub of 100% acrylic paint and I used that to sculpt my piece into having layers and texture. I decided to give the general space in my piece a smooth texture because I was not sure what exact element it could be made of so I decided to keep it smooth. For nitrogen, I decided to give it a rigid feel to it but still try to keep it smooth still since it is less heated compared to the other two elements. I placed this on the majority of the right edges and a bit on the left bottom corner edge of the piece. For hydrogen I decided to go for a wavy feel to it since it’s a bit higher on the temperature scale of elements and I thought some waves could mean more of a spike of texture. Hydrogen is placed towards the upper left corner of the piece and can be also felt (hopefully) towards the upper middle of the ring of oxygen. Oxygen is represented with the roughest texture I could create; it is like touching the backside of a new sponge where one side is soft and the other is rough. I created this texture using a spongy applicator I had lying around. This was chosen for Oxygen due to it being the hottest element in the Bubble Nebula. Oxygen can be found towards the middle bottom edge and can be found after hydrogen going towards the right. The more elevated part of the piece is the ring itself made of oxygen. I decided that because there is so much happening outside of the Bubble Nebula, there should be elevation for the surface of the Bubble Nebula to make it more distinct from the rest. Lastly, I decided to add little individual spikes on the canvas to represent stars that are placed sporadically in and around the Bubble Nebula.

The Nowhere Nebula

The Nowhere Nebula is a sculpture that incorporates aspects and takes inspiration from the Cosmic Reef, Crab Nebula, Cephid Nebula, Lagoon Nebula, Monkey’s Head Nebula, and the Tarantula Nebula. The sculpture is made up of triangular panels that are glued together to make a hollow form. I made the panels one at a time and decided their dimensions based on how I wanted each panel to fit with the ones next to it and how I wanted to angle it so that I could manipulate the overall shape of the sculpture. The majority of creating this sculpture felt like solving a puzzle at the same time I was making it. Each piece is built to fit in with what is already there and to make space for what comes after it. This sometimes meant making an individual panel over again until I liked how it fit, or even removing a panel entirely if it ended up being in my way. The inspiration behind this piece was my desire to find a way to represent the relation of data and art in astronomy. Specifically referencing the way every artistic rendering of space is made up of data, just like how my sculpture is a nebula made up of angles and geometry. 
 

A Peek into the Cosmic Cliffs

When viewing the pristine photos of faraway galaxies published by STScI from telescopes such as James Webb, these images seem almost effortless, like a simple snap of camera shutters. Viewing data found on MAST, however, it quickly becomes obvious that this is not the case. Instead, such images are made mostly of raw, infrared ‘exposures’ of different segments of an astral object, made up of wavelengths we simply cannot see, to piece together one full image. I decided to portray this process in my work. Through the use of 3-dimensional “shards,” I depict the different filters that make up the Carina Nebula, or the “Cosmic Cliffs” – only recently imaged by JWST with use of its infrared and near-infrared technologies, allowing it to peer through the cosmic dust which had previously obscured this portion of the nebula. Each shard represents a filter – or overlay of filters – that make up part of what goes into the main, polished image, depicted in the center of the canvas board.

Southern Ring Nebula

This Project is inspired by an image of NGC 3132 taken on 2022-06-03 16:01:34.362999 by JWST. The color choices are inspired by its Red-Blue color mapped image. I substituted orange & yellow for the red hues due to material constraint. Nevertheless, the subtle changes in the shades of yellow and orange shows the movement of dust being blown from the center dying star, represented by the dark blue center, accentuated by its pale surrounding, sharded in the eyes of JWST, and translated into the multi planed structure of this piece.

The 4 single curved wires are representative of flux data of KIC 8462852. Previously, I had attempted to bend wires into the shape of the light curve but found it unsuccessful. As a result, I took the repetition within the data into account along with the natural pattern of the wire itself, to create the final form of “light curves” in this piece. The 12 straight wires ,on the other hand, were representative of the noise surrounding the nebula. In contrast, the straight wires functioned to accentuate the “light curves”.

Although I was inspired to create this shape from previous craft experiences, I have since learned this method holds traditional and cultural significance within Latin American culture. Known as Ojo de Dios, or God’s eye, it is used as a ritual tool for worshippers to communicate with, and receive protection from God. Since the spread of the craft in the U.S, it has lost much of its original meaning, and in cases, has been considered a distinctive Christian craft. In modern day the craft still holds significance within groups such as the Huichol, indigenous people of Mexico and U.S, and Puebloans, Native Americans located in Southwestern U.S. In respect to the history of this craft, I hope this piece also serves as a reminder to honor the history of Ojo de Dios.