Tag Archives: Immersive Solar Explorer

“New MOST Exhibit Uses Video Game Technology To Interact With Humans” – Article At syracuse.com

Katrina Tulloch at syracuse.com posted an article early this morning about a new immersive technology exhibit that attendees of this morning’s TACNY Jr. Cafe Scientifique were able to immerse themselves in for free.

From the article, available at syracuse.com/entertainment/…/new_exhibit_at_the_most.html, I highlight my favorite part of the installation, Lorne Covington’s Immersive Solar Explorer (those who’ve kept up with the website will remember our post about Lorne’s exhibit back during The MOST’s NASA Climate Day festivities this past April):

The second screen, “The Unseen Sun,” uses continuously updated information from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory to create an interactive sun. By waving their hands, people can “change” the sun’s colors and examine the sun’s different temperature levels.

From the article: New augmented reality exhibit at the Museum of Science and Technology MOST science educator Matt Fagan, 23, explains the features of the museum’s new fall exhibit, “Out There: Exploring Space through Augmented Reality.”

Furthermore, if you’ve not taken an afternoon to expand your mind (or your kids’ minds), The MOST has quite a bit of really good astronomy education happening in its lower floors as permanent installations. Well worth the admission price.

But you can also explore on the cheap! As attendees to TACNY Jr. Cafe Scientifique lectures know, your attendance comes with a free admission to all of the floor exhibits for the afternoon (then use the savings to pick up a model of the Space Shuttle on your way out!).

Before closing this post up, I’d like to extend a sincere thanks to both Katrina Tulloch and the ever-cumulonimbus Dave Eichorn at syracuse.com for regularly posting items of local science (and, specifically, astronomy) interest. If you missed it, Dave’s recent “Anatomy of a beautiful sunset over Central New York this evening” post distilled a nice bit of astronomy, meteorology, history, and photography in one fell swoop.

You can get their direct feeds by subscribing to their twitter feeds (as the @cnyobs account does): @katrinatulloch and @DaveEichorn.

Article 1: http://www.syracuse.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/10/new_exhibit_at_the_most.html

Article2 : http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/10/anatomy_of_a_firey_sunset.html

MOST Climate Day Sneak Preview – Lorne Covington’s Immersive Solar Explorer – Tuesday, April 2nd

Greetings fellow astrophiles!

I had the good fortune on March 7th of meeting Lorne Covington, the mind behind noirflux.com, at a Hacks/Hackers Syracuse Meetup. Those of you who’ve been to the MOST recently, including those who attended the March 16th TACNY-sponsored Jr. Cafe Scientifique lecture on Satellites and Space Junk, may have had the good fortune of meeting one of Lorne’s installations – the Dancing Light Theater interactive exhibit (see the video below).

I am pleased to report that, just in time for the MOST’s April 2nd Climate Day festivities, another of Lorne’s interactive pieces is going to be in full effect. His Immersive Solar Explorer will be set up in the MOST (yet another thing some of the CNYO attendees will miss as we turn our attention (and our scopes) to the Sun on the Creekwalk all afternoon). A sneak preview of this exhibit (and description) is shown in the vimeo video below.

Immersive Solar Explorer from NoirFlux on Vimeo.

Waving your hand near the large moving sun reveals intricate moving structures on and above the solar surface. The base image is of the sun at 80,000 degrees, and when you hold your hand near the sun, the 1,000,000 degree image is revealed, both images moving in sync. (The screen is interactive from both sides, hence the reversed legends.)

The imagery is from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov), which updates with a new still image every 15 minutes in a variety of wavelengths. The installation displays a moving animation of the data from the previous five days, up to the last 15 minute image.

This early version is using the 1K (1024×1024) SDO data, the updated version uses the 2K and 4K datasets for greater visual clarity, and offers selection of wavelengths to view.

Music: Sunsets (excerpt) by Sang Froid