Almost There: Pluto in a Month

New Horizons is giving Earth the A-OK! All the systems look good and we are only 37.4 million kilometres away from Pluto.  Yes that is far, but considering we usually see Pluto at a distance 200 times that, we are doing pretty well.  The newest processed photos have come in from NASA and John’s Hopkins University, and they are starting to show a complex and mysterious surface chock-full of science goodies that make astronomers salivate like Pavlov’s dog when the bell rang.  But image processing is a science in itself, and I wanted to show you the difference between a raw photo...

Moon Rhea Transits Saturn Beautifully

A lot of the data that comes from Space can be called art.  Though if you’ve ever seen raw Astronomical data, it’s anything but.  It takes a talented artist to bring out the detail in the photo and make it truly beautiful!  In the case of large missions like the Cassini Spacecraft, there are a plethora of scientists and artists alike making the most of the data. Especially with Cassini, I always get the feeling it’s a professional photographer taking the photos.  The lighting, composition, and other photographic buzzwords are all exceptional, as if it was staged by someone saying...