First Images, July 8, 2011.

Posted on March 21, 2012 by risahorowitz

On July 8th I visited the Kalium Observatory and using the projection photography technique managed to capture 67 mostly unusable images of the planet. I hand-held the camera in front of the telescope eyepiece, shot at 3200, f5.6, between 1/60 and 1/180s. Like this:

blurry Saturn, July 8, 2011

The Kallium Meade LX200 is mounted to the building and so the slightest breeze or breath causes shake. I learned also that night the very basics about viewing conditions and the way the sky itself can make for poor ‘seeing conditions‘. When seeing conditions are bad it reminds me of looking down a hot paved road – everything shimmers.

The best of those images appears as the banner on this blog, and was the same frame used for the Critical Faculties exhibition. That image now stands as the 2011 image: the first yearly image I hope to make for each year of Saturn’s orbit around the sun [29.42 years].

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Why Saturn?

Posted on March 18, 2012 by risahorowitz

Well, it’s because of Dan. On the night of my PhD comprehensive examination exhibition reception [May 19, 2010], Dan Falk, science journalist and fellow Toronto Scrabble in the City Scrabbler, noted that on Wednesday night the Petrie Science observatory at York University has free drop-ins. So we cleaned up and a few of us [I think it was Dan, Rob Cruikshank, Julieta Maria, and Dave Kemp] headed over.

I love my geek/nerd photo loving friends.

I wasn’t particularly taken by the moon, or by the nebula that required averted vision. But Saturn took my breath away, brought me to tears. I couldn’t believe how stunning it was – it looked like a schematic drawing. Pure white against the dark universe, with a slightly offset line bisecting the squat sphere. That experience made concrete for me how real is the universe. Saturn was right there, I saw it with my own eyes, it was so very far away, yet so close considering the incomprehensible scale of the universe.

I went back with a camera the following week but by the time the public had seen enough that I could attach the camera to the telescope, Saturn was too low in the sky and the graduate students were ready to go home for the evening: I didn’t manage to get a shot.

I developed a vague sense that this would become a project, and concluded my job talk at the University of Regina almost a year later with the idea that what’s next likely has something to do with the universe. Within one week of arriving in Regina I visited the local observatory [see the blog entry RASC Beginnings] and captured my first image of the planet via projection imaging. And so I spent fall 2011 writing the SSHRC Insight Development Grant that I hope will help fund the project [see the blog entry on Research/Creation and Astro-Amateurism].

So this is why Saturn. I feel connected with all the other cosmos-lovers whose first telescopic view was this beautiful planet – and it seems to be the best bait. I feel connected with Galileo, who was the first to look at Saturn through a telescope [even though he couldn’t quite make sense of what he was seeing]. So I guess I’m about to get a 1000mm lens and have to lug photo gear around after all these years trying to avoid such muscular pursuits…..

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RASC Beginnings

Posted on March 18, 2012 by risahorowitz

I contacted the RASC Regina Centre before moving to Regina in July 2011, having already decided that I would have to photograph Saturn. Chris Beckett engaged me in an email exchange that I barely understood except regarding two points: 1. go to the Kalium Observatory public drop in on July 8th, and 2. go to the next members meeting in early September.

On July 8th I did visit the observatory and met Ron and Len, who are the RASC members who volunteer regularly to hold public drop-in viewing sessions at Kalium Observatory. They were very welcoming, and Ron took some time to show me some of the computerized tracking equipment and engage me in conversation.

At the September meeting I introduced myself [I shouldn’t have been surprised that I was the only woman in the room of 25 or so people], and began to attend monthly meetings. Most members have been very welcoming and encouraging, some have brought books to loan or give to me [thank you Ian and Pete], others have sent tips and encouragement through the club list-serve.

As it turns out Chris Beckett has become a great source of encouragement and mentorship. He and Shane [club president] invited me to make a short presentation about my project, and later invited Gail Chin and me to make a club presentation on photographing the night sky with cameras. He’s been a great consultant on astronomy basics, and astrophotography equipment and has taken me out to join he and his viewing pal, Mike, at their preferred dark sky location about 50km outside of town. Chris also gave me a photo challenge in November when Saturn, Spica [star] and the new moon were in unique alignment in the morning sky [see post Saturn, Spica, New Moon, November 22, 2011].

Since fall 2011 I’ve been a member of the RASC and I’m enjoying learning so much from such a diversity of people. Everyone has something in the sky he [yes] likes to look at. One loves to look at galaxies, another nebula, this one Jupiter, that one other things the names of which I haven’t absorbed. Others still are perfectly happy to set up a telescope and look at anything whatsoever. One member, Vance Petriew, discovered a comet which is named after him, read about that here [I’ll eventually post more about amateur vs. professional astronomers]. Like within the Scrabble world, members have a range of dispositions [from nerdy to cranky to happy to just plain weird]. And it’s nice to become a part of a community outside of ‘work’ in a new town.

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Research/Creation and Astro-Amateurism

Posted on March 18, 2012 by risahorowitz

At the moment my priority is to finish writing my PhD Dissertation Support paper. The PhD I’m doing is an examination of the disciplining of visual art practice through its ongoing entrenchment within the academic research institution of the university.

My Doctorate has proceeded from my position that the processes and practices of making art are different from the methodologies and methods of academic research, engaging different vocabularies and activities, and, most importantly, having altogether different values and objectives.

As part of the PhD I’ve been framing my art practice as one that blurs boundaries between categories operative within university research structures: expert/amateur, work/hobby; leisure/productivity. The specific bodies of work that I’m leveraging in that investigation are Blurry Canada, Potager, and a project having to do with the board game Scrabble.

Imaging Saturn, a new project, is further framed institutionally as research-creation and through it I persist in distinguishing the various values held by artists and Researchers [for more on little ‘r’ big ‘R’ research check out Christopher Frayling, 1993] within the university. With Imaging Saturn, I’m taking up the hobby of becoming an amateur astronomer and astrophotographer in order to collect images of Saturn from which to develop several bodies of art works. My contribution will be to the field of art, and not astronomy. What’s special about astronomy – and I couldn’t have planned this had I tried – is in the way amateurs and professionals alike contribute to research and new knowledge within that field. One great example is with the Galaxy Zoo project, featured in today’s Guardian.

So…in having acquired a feel for the game I’m able to frame this art project within the research-creation paradigm and the basis of the project is well suited to my persistence in upholding the uniqueness and range of visual arts practices against the external pressures of today’s university [and today’s financial and political economy].

If I am successful in my SSHRC bid, I will have been successful in receiving funding for a hobby; or a research project that is problematized by my positioning of it as hobby; or an art project that I’ve framed as both un-serious hobby and serious Research. I like that.

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Critical Faculties, First Nations University Art Gallery

Posted on March 18, 2012 by risahorowitz

Critical Faculties
March 2nd – April 13th 2012
The First Nations University Art Gallery

The first public exhibition of Imaging Saturn work is part of a group exhibition by artist faculty members from First Nations University of Canada and the University of Regina. Artists in the exhibition include Judy Anderson, Ruth Chambers, David Garneau, Marsha Kennedy, Lionel Peyachew, Leesa Streifler, Rachelle Viader Knowles, Robert Truszkowski, and Sean Whalley.

The work I produced for the exhibition is a 2×13′ image of Saturn taken in 2011 – the first year photographing the planet – with a paired wall text. The image of the planet itself is smaller than 3″, set within the black field. The image was printed on adhesive vinyl and mounted in the corner of the gallery, which is curved [in line with the architectural vision of designer Douglas Cardinal]. The vinyl lettering was mounted on the opposite corner and contains fixed and variable data relating to the date, time, and location that the photograph was made.

This image was shot by ‘projection’ – I hand-held a D5000 dSLR [Nikon] in front of the eyepiece of the Meade LX200 12″ telescope at the Kalium Observatory [Regina Science Centre].

Image


Image

Image

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Copyright Statement

Posted on March 18, 2012 by risahorowitz

Well.

All the images on all posts on all the pages of this blog are ©Risa Horowitz unless otherwise attributed. These images are not licensed by creative commons. If you want to use them you ought to ask me for permission, tell me how you want to use them, let me tell you if you have my permission to use the image(s)  and then credit me if you use my images with my permission. And if you reference them – well, let me know about it. That’s what I expect.

All the writing in all the posts on all the pages of this blog are ©Risa Horowitz unless otherwise attributed. Don’t steal my words or plagiarize my ideas. Credit me if you cite my words and/or my ideas – and let me know how you’ve used them. That’s what I expect.

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