Recently a new IMAX 3D movie was released about the Hubble Space Telescope. Even though it premiered over a month ago, it just opened today in Baltimore. In honor of this, STScI had a special employee showing tonight. That's right, they bought out the IMAX for two showings and let us all see it for free. And they let us bring our families, so I, naturally, took my roommates.Before the show, they had two people talk. First, Frank Summers, who works at STScI in the public outreach group and was heavily involved with the making of the film. Following him was John Grunsfeld, an astronaut who has serviced Hubble three times, and currently serves as the deputy directory (the #2 guy) at STScI. After they spoke, it was showtime!
All I can say is this: stop whatever you're doing, go to your nearest IMAX theater and see this movie!! It is soooo cool!
They give a brief history of Hubble, including footage of the first launch, as well as the first servicing mission that fixed the messed up optics. They talked a lot about the most recent servicing mission, including a lot of footage. (The astronauts are pretty funny, it turns out.) And maybe the coolest part is the 3D stuff through different objects in space. WOW. The 3D fly-through the Orion Nebula is AMAZING. Seriously people. GO SEE THIS MOVIE. What a blast.
The cool thing to, as they explained before the film, everything is as scientifically accurate as they could make it. They didn't just go crazy with artistic license. No, they consulted people who knew much of the science behind, say, the Orion Nebula, and used their expertise and best judgment to determine what the structure would be like if we could fly around in it. While the majority of the images are from Hubble, what Hubble was missing (for example, to get rid of the weird step shape in the image of the Eagle Nebula taken with WFPC2) they made up for with ground based images. And they combined both optical and IR observations from Hubble.
It was a really fun evening, and a REALLY great movie. Go see it as soon as you can!
1 comment:
I really need to make a trip down to SLC now - that is the closest place with a theatre. That sounds so awesome - I heard about how they made the film on Science Friday, and that was just cool. I don't think I have ever seen a 3D movie in theatres before... this would be an awesome start.
I have also heard John Grunsfeld before - that had to be SO cool :)
Lucky lucky girl!
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