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Planet Search

January 20, 2013 michelewln

Tags: Art astronomy space

I am a space buff. I discovered science fiction when I was eight years old. I have been convinced since then that we are not alone.

The Kepler telescope is being used to try and find planets around other stars hopefully in the habitable zone. That would be the zone that would be able to have water and not be too hot or too cold so that life could exist in that place. It is the holy grail of exoplanet research. The European Space Agency will be launching the Gaia Mission this year with this as its goal ” To create the largest and most precise three dimensional chart of our Galaxy by providing unprecedented positional and radial velocity measurements for about one billion stars in our Galaxy and throughout the Local Group.”

I follow the travels of Curiosity on Mars. I really hope it finds evidence of life on Mars. The other place in the solar system that might harbor life is Jupiter’s moon Europa. Again it is the European Space Agency that is planning on exploring Jupiter’s moon with a launch scheduled to arrive in 2030.

As an artist I frequently do landscapes with planets in the sky. I love gas planets and especially those with rings. Here is some of my artwork under alien skies.

Because the Night

Crimson Skies

Damage Control

Dolphin Moon

Europa

Freedom

Morning Has Broken

Other Worlds

Planet Fall

Rose

Sunrise Falls

Taking Baby for a Walk

The Gift

Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 8 Comments

8 comments

dear occupant

January 20, 2013 at 4:03 pm

as an ex painter, pen and ink illustrator, i’m very curious about the process, in how these images were produced.

some parts seem so exact, while other areas have the feel of being done by hand, especially some of the subtle shading and nuanced color transistions.

thanks for posting them, you have a very fertile imagination.
trs

January 20, 2013 at 4:05 pm

Love the artwork!

I somewhat follow what is going on with the space program. One of my best friends from high school was one of the lead scientists on the Venus probe a few years back.
iriti

January 20, 2013 at 4:08 pm

I too am fascinated by planets. Love your art.
michelewln

January 20, 2013 at 4:14 pm

When the arthritis got so severe in my hands that I couldn’t hold a paintbrush any more I switched over to computer generated art. I can do everything I did with pen and ink and a paintbrush with an ergonomic mouse. I use Bryce 7 for the main work and DAZ 4.5 for most of the figures as well as Photoshop for touch-ups and other places like Turbosquid to get my models. DAZ is currently offering the composing software for free at http://www.daz3d.com/.
Chris Blask

January 20, 2013 at 4:58 pm

Adept will show up before long and we can continue the Search for Life conversations which are always good.

We live in California in 2010-12, and our daughter’s friend’s father is a machinist. They make all sorts of interesting pieces where he works, many of them for NASA.

He brought over a prototype they made for Curiosity’s wheels, which lived in my office for some months. Despite pleading and blackmail I was not able to keep it, but it lives on my iPhone as the wallpaper.

NASA would not let them keep the “JPL” on the tread, so the crafty engineers made the tread pattern spell “JPL” in morse code. Curiosity is stamping that all over the Martian surface as we speak.

The NASA folks are known for embedding such easter eggs. The new Cyber Security task force members’ badge got past the sensors with LOL and WTF in morse code disguised in lines connecting three satellites orbiting the earth. ;~)
Adept2u

January 20, 2013 at 5:08 pm

Freaking have me on the line and swimming for the boat with the first line. I’ll be back.
sricki

January 20, 2013 at 10:31 pm

Thanks so much for posting them here! I wish I had that kind of artistic ability.

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