by RJN » Sun Mar 23, 2014 11:31 pm
geckzilla wrote: Really? I've sometimes wanted to do some illustrations but it looks like there is no shortage of artists, some of them very good. What more could be done? I do sometimes wish they were more accurate. If I ever do any illustrations I swear I will not put star fields behind every bright thing because that makes absolutely no sense. There are stars visible through this accretion disk!!
There are some very good artists, but many times I see a press release accompanied by art that is either scientifically wrong or artistically dull. Yes, the latter reason is subjective, but some of the depicted places are up there with the most interesting in the universe, yet somehow they come off looking boring. And no, I don't really know how to fix them.
Today's illustration is really one of the better ones, in my opinion, in terms of communicating the surroundings of a black hole. Some artists might say that a black hole is just a black spot against a black background, but really the accretion disk and jet and lensing effects can likely be combined to create something both scientifically accurate and visually spectacular -- in a number of wavelengths.
Oh, and if you (plural) do see one of these, please post it to the "Found" thread on the Asterisk's Observation Deck Forum.
- RJN
[quote="geckzilla"] Really? I've sometimes wanted to do some illustrations but it looks like there is no shortage of artists, some of them very good. What more could be done? I do sometimes wish they were more accurate. If I ever do any illustrations I swear I will not put star fields behind every bright thing because that makes absolutely no sense. There are stars visible through this accretion disk!![/quote]
There are some very good artists, but many times I see a press release accompanied by art that is either scientifically wrong or artistically dull. Yes, the latter reason is subjective, but some of the depicted places are up there with the most interesting in the universe, yet somehow they come off looking boring. And no, I don't really know how to fix them.
Today's illustration is really one of the better ones, in my opinion, in terms of communicating the surroundings of a black hole. Some artists might say that a black hole is just a black spot against a black background, but really the accretion disk and jet and lensing effects can likely be combined to create something both scientifically accurate and visually spectacular -- in a number of wavelengths.
Oh, and if you (plural) do see one of these, please post it to the "Found" thread on the Asterisk's Observation Deck Forum.
- RJN