USA Aloft announces Light, the Universe and Everything, an Astronomy Exhibit at Massabesic Audubon Center now through April 24. A reception will be held April 9 from 6 PM to 9PM at the Center. Read the full press release: [PDF].
None at this time. Note: To use other images from an exhibit currently on display, please contact USA Aloft.
Images are supplied as full resolution jpg files containing IPTC information. The full resolution images have varying dpi and are intended to provide the maximum number of pixels. A reduced version of each image, 5 inches across at 200 dpi is also supplied. The IPTC caption information is shown here along with additional background information for each image.
These images are supplied for print use only. We have unfortunately had some difficulty with unauthorized use of images. Therefore, the links to the full and reduced resolution images have been password protected. To apply for a password or to have a copy of an image emailed, please contact USA Aloft at the email address in the press release. For use online, please contact USA Aloft.
We expect to provide the missing images before Saturday, April 2, 2011.
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Caption: View of Light, the Universe and Everything, an Astroniomy Exhibit as installed at Massabesic Audubon Center.
Additional background: This exhibit from USA Aloft, LLC in Auburn, NH, will be available after April 2011 for hanging in other locations. Contact USA Aloft for details.
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Caption: Astronomers use different colored filters to help discriminate between different types of objects. In much the same way, visitors may use different filters to read messages hidden in the jumble of colored lines on a page. Here a white light and red filter view are compared.
Additional background: The exhibit allows visitors to create their own messages with crayons and various colored filters.
This image is used in the exhibit courtesy Hubble Space Telescope and Space Telecope Science Institute.under their guidelines. Their original image is a massive 51MB.
We provide a reduced version at 200 dpi.
Caption: This image of the Carina Nebula shows a region of tremendous star birth and death 7,500 light years away from Earth. The nebula is home to Eta Carinae, one of the most massive stars in the universe, prone to unpredictable, violent outbursts.
Additional background: The exhibit features a four foot wide version of this image. Much more information about this image is available at the HubbleSite News Archive.
This Milky Way Galaxy image is courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC/Caltech). Follow that link to download full size original images or you may download the modified images below. The caption text (here and in the image) has been left as originally provided.
Modified images: Full Resolution Version 200 dpi Reduced Resolution Version
Caption: Like early explorers mapping the continents of our globe, astronomers are busy charting the spiral structure of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Using infrared images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have discovered that the Milky Way's elegant spiral structure is dominated by just two arms wrapping off the ends of a central bar of stars. Previously, our galaxy was thought to possess four major arms.
This artist's concept illustrates the new view of the Milky Way, along with other findings presented at the 212th American Astronomical Society meeting in St. Louis, Mo. The galaxy's two major arms (Scutum-Centaurus and Perseus) can be seen attached to the ends of a thick central bar, while the two now-demoted minor arms (Norma and Sagittarius) are less distinct and located between the major arms. The major arms consist of the highest densities of both young and old stars; the minor arms are primarily filled with gas and pockets of star-forming activity.
The artist's concept also includes a new spiral arm, called the "Far-3 kiloparsec arm," discovered via a radio-telescope survey of gas in the Milky Way. This arm is shorter than the two major arms and lies along the bar of the galaxy.
Our sun lies near a small, partial arm called the Orion Arm, or Orion Spur, located between the Sagittarius and Perseus arms.
Additional background: The modified image shown includes a "You are here" marker for the solar system.
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Caption: Using simple trigonometry, visitors measure the parallax of two views across the room to determine the distance to a small star on the far wall.
Additional background: Parallax is the difference in position relative to distant objects that we observe when looking from two different vantage points. Astronomers use parallax to measure the distance to stars by taking measurements from different points on earth's orbit around the sun.
This image is used in the exhibit courtesy NASA / WMAP Science Team under their guidelines. To download their original image, please visit the WMAP site.
Caption: Seven year Cosmic Background Radiation image from NASA / WMAP Science Team.
Additional background: The image from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) NASA Explorer mission shows minute temperature varuations in the cosmic background radiation from approximately 13.7 years ago. These temperature differences show the beginnings of structure resulting in our present day universe.
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Caption: The two kilometer (1.25 mile) distance to Battery Point is related to the six trillion kilometer (3.7 trillion mile) distance to Pluto. At this scale, earth is the size of a BB.
Additional background: This is the first of three such images in the exhibit. The next image "squuezes" this one down to a point and represents the distance across the Milky way as the distance to battery Point. The third squeezes the galaxy to a small point with the distance to Battery point as the size of the known universe.
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Caption: Coming soon. This and similar plates were used with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) telescope to collect spectra simultaneously from over 600 objects. Fiber optic lines carried light focused from a single objects on the plate to a spectroscope.
Additional background: Further images of the SDSS telescope and its spectroscopy plates include a scientist plugging in fibers.
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Caption: "Self Portraits" photographer and creator of the Light, the Universe and Everything astronomy exhibit, David Saxe, and his Kodak camera take their own picture.
Additional background: David Saxe is a Systems Architect, Pilot and Photographer with a strong
background in scientific programming and systems design. Working for fifteen
years at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, he created
software for analysis, reduction and graphical presentation of astrophysics
images, including data from Hubble Space Telescope. He has brought that experience to bear in the preparation of Light, the Universe and Everything, an astronomy exhibit. Read more about Mr. Saxe, including his Lewis and Clark work.
