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Don Davis

@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social

Space Artist, sky observer and photographer. Processor of space images. Interested in Astronomy, Planetary Geology, history and in what the future may bring.

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Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · yesterday

'There Will Come Soft Rains' tells of the final day of an automated house carrying on the routines for long dead tenants, in a short story within Ray Bradbury's 'The Martian Chronicles'. The date mentioned in the cheerful morning announcement by the house robotic voice is today, August 4, 2026.

Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3d ago

51 years ago I painted a trio of Viking related works for NASA HQ including the widely reproduced one of the landing on Mars. I have reimagined the Landing portrayal in updated form using digital methods of visualization and painting. I chose the same angle but with reality replacing anticipation.

This oil painting portrays the Viking 1 landing on Mars, which appeared in countless publications. The story of this work is relayed in an earlier post and is shown here for comparison with the new portrayal of this very view, showing the event as it would have appeared. This 1975 anticipatory painting was done with oils on a gesso smoothed 16 X 20 canvas panel, using traditional art methods including a tracing paper guide featured earlier. This work shows in retrospect my ideal of the 'spirit of space art', showing something of a summary of what is known of the subject while conveying what it is about the subject's known or theorized attributes that I find visually compelling. The new digital painting updates that visual impression with one based on our current knowledge. The new digital work was also done at the same size as this one was for possible printing purposes, 16 by 20 inches at 300 DPI. #Sciart In 1976 the pair of Viking spacecraft orbiter/lander combos were sent to Mars. Before Viking, Mars was still largely a place of our imaginations, an unknown that we wrote stories about then studied from Earth and space. The dominance of cratered terrain on the portions of Mars photographed by Mariners 4, 6 and 7 gave an initially Lunar impression of that world, which changed during the development of the Viking lander after Mariner 9 revealed the planet. The first landing was aimed for a flat flood plain, judged as a decent place to search for life. The landing date was July 4, however the intended site appeared too rough for comfort in the high quality orbiter photos, causing the landing to wisely be delayed. A smoother site further 'down stream' was found using photo and radar data. The landing proceeded quite nominally, a magnificent achievement that apparently accounted for what it had to and made it the first time. The first photo from the surface was a look at a footpad to see how solid the 'footing' appeared. Then a moderate resolution panorama of the surroundings was obtained, first showing the rocks, hills, dunes-and bright sky. The latter was my biggest surprise as a space artist. The adjustments to the color balance of the later photos were gradually narrowed down. The ubiquitous dust is planet wide, suspended in the air and coloring the sky a luminous tan ochre. This digital painting shows the view a meter above the surface seeing the lander briefly kicking up dust less than a second before touchdown with the footpads 1.4 meters high. The landing rockets were designed with many nozzles to disturb the surroundings as little as possible. The nearby disturbed dust resembles in color that of the sky. We are 6 meters away from the center of the lander. field of view is 60 degrees, we are looking Northwest with the Sun and Earth off the frame to the left. This is a digital art update of the pre mission oil painting I did for NASA HQ 1n 1975. #Sciart
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

When the Viking landing sites were well photographed, maps of the surroundings could be compiled. I made a grayscale overview based on comparisons between the two camera panoramas, and with reference to sample field maps. A color oil painting of the lander was then done incorporating such work.

This vertical view of the Viking 1 landing site is based on the surface panoramas, extrapolated from the cameras views, seeking to place the featured in reasonably proper relative distances from the lander. Such work was of course drafted and executed by hand. After the Viking mission two large format NASA Special Publications were especially valuable in later efforts to portray the Viking landing sites in Perspective. First, of course, was NASA SP-425 The Martian Landscape' with beautiful large reproductions of earlier Viking photos, and NASA CR-3568 'The Viking Lander Atlas of Mars' which displayed the derived locations of landscape features in 3D space, plotted in contour lines defined by the perspective of the two cameras. This is a low resolution view of an artwork done in an odd art medium, scratchboard with a gray dot screen printed on it as a basis for making white or inked marks. Several sheets of this were given to me in the 70s by Chesley Bonestell, encouraging me to play with them. He said they were old, so that could mean WW II or so. I used all but one for such Planetary work. I did maps with them of the sites of Vikings 1 & 2, Venera 9, and Venera 10. All those were published in Sky & Telescope magazine, and in their volume 'The New Solar System', which used my art through out the book. I also made an overview of where they thought Viking 1 was, which turned out to be incorrect. An unfinished one of the Lunar Orientale basin awaits completion, at the time I started it the Western portions of that basin were still poorly photographed and my drawing was going to be an improvement in the available imagery. Now it is quite well known so there is less incentive to finish it. #Sciart Viking 1 on Mars. This oil on illustration board painting incorporated my efforts to plot the lander surroundings in perspective, and of course knowledge of the final actual lander appearance. The nearest footpad is entirely buried in the powdery dust, a sight which would have certainly been alarming if that had happened to the footpad seen in the first photo! The large rock in the right foreground was nicknamed 'Big Joe'. Just to the right of the lander along the horizon is the upraised rim of a distant impact crater. The overall color of the scenery reflects mostly influence from initial contemporary sources. National Geographic published a Viking article which featured the kind of independent first class photo work they used to be known for in the early space age. Their color chart driven version of the Martian scenery tended toward the brick red, reasonably approximating the hues as if lit by a noon time Sun in a Terrestrial sky. This painting was initially done in a similar color balance to what they mostly used, then later I learned of the ambient sky etc contributions and overpainted the scene with an orange tan layer. The result color wise is something in between what it was and what it should be, but the scenery remains valid. The Martian sky was based on Viking camera images, whose truncated brightness near the top of the frame complicated portraying the actual sky brightness range. #Sciart
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

A few more Viking 1 Mars surface images. Vikings 1 & 2 yielded a variety and duration of observations that gave the first 'Ground Truth' about this intriguing neighbor world's surface and atmosphere. It's early digital camera design worked well with the brightness range of the surface details.

Late in the afternoon of Martian day 651, on May 20, 1978, the lengthening shadows of the larger rocks were photographed by Viking 1. A few tries were done at obtaining color photos with the higher resolution settings of the camera. A raised rim of a 500 meter wide impact crater about 2.5 km away can be seen at the horizon, looking much like Arizona's Meteor Crater as one approaches it. The image processing attempts to show something of the actual brightness and colors of the scene and sky. The Martian surface is darker than the impression one would have from most of the photos, which are understandably optimized in exposure to bring out surface details. Three tries at using the color and grayscale chart to recover the colors of the scenery. The grayscale ended up being pivotal in obtaining some sense of color balance. I tried incorporating the IR data by using it to modify the blue to try to cancel out the leak of Infra Red through the blue filter, but I was unable to obtain coherent results. So I gave up on making the blue chip blue, which notoriously photographed as purple with that camera anyway, and relied on the gray scale to establish some color anchor point. I am not an engineer trying to account for all the camera quirks, I approach this like I would when photographing my artwork. I have a gray scale and color chart in the frame for reference and adjustments. Basically, using the 'curves' tool in Photoshop to establish a gray point is the key. The initial result is usually ludicrously garish so I then reduce the saturation to best show the red and green chips as as well as the overall scenery, in this case seen 'over the shoulder' of the lander. Of course there is judgement involved in seeking to show what I think the camera is seeing. An early space image processing I did over 20 years ago, of the celebrated Viking 1 Sunset picture. I took the grayscale files and hand blended the rather coarse steps in the brightness contours recorded by that limited grayscale camera system in the twilight. This, along with retouching of brightness variations in the dark foreground spacecraft parts etc. as they were scanned, was done to show this amazing image to its best advantage. I remember being captivated when I first saw a contrasty initial version of this image in a Viking newsletter. Although Viking is a rewarding data set to explore, the monumental and sterling work of Olivier Goursac makes me think twice before thinking I have any new contribution to what has been done. I wish to acknowledge the useful and enduring Viking image browser set up by Holger Isenberg, with all the lander images available to download and play with.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

Tonight, July 22 marks the 6th anniversary of a mystery in the sky that I was apparently one of the very few to notice. I saw and took photos of a fuzzy compact 'glow' about the apparent size of the Moon. It rose reddened at first from local atmospheric effects, then slowly moved North and faded.

A typical photo of this 'mystery glow' that steadily and slowly drifted among the background stars. I was about to conclude my fisheye time lapse of the comet appearing in the evening twilight then setting. I used my large binoculars to scan the sky along the horizon. While peering toward the Southeast I noticed a distinct fuzzy patch of light, like a poorly resolved globular star cluster. I stared at it with the binocs and determined it wasn't quickly moving or dissipating. I then retrieved the tripod mounted camera which was off the road a little among things you didn't want to brush against or step on, including a tarantula the size of my hand. I changed lenses from my fisheye to my 'fast' lens and proceeded to photograph it. Over time it moved among the stars, slowly dimming. It was probably the Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter launch vehicle upper stage venting propellent, a mission launched within hours of this observation. Here are my combined images of the mysterious 'fuzzball' I saw and photographed the night of July 22. The timings are close to the beginnings of the exposures. I approximately matched the exposures in the different frames to help show the brightness changes. The sky grid with 2000 coordinates was also sketched in to aid in showing the motion of the fuzzball over time against the stars. The exposures vary, 15 to 20 seconds at F:1.6 ISO 1600 for the earlier images, the last few were 15 seconds F 2.8, ISO 3200. All used the Canon 50mm F 1.4 lens. A frame from the July 23, 2020 time lapse of Comet Neowise in the dark skies that I travelled to Sheephole Valley Wilderness to obtain. There's still a lot of glow from the LA region and Las Vegas shines in the distance, but most of the sky is nice and dark. At the end of this sequence the 'fuzzball' can be seen rising but as I tilted the camera the other direction it appeared in the frame well above the horizon. As I type this i was just finishing this sequence.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

After the 1st context panoramas, the next anticipated image was the first color photo. This arrived and was printed initially too blue, then the next adjusted image came out too reddish. Later work quantified the surface and sky colors in results consistent with the observations of later missions.

The first color photograph from the surface of Mars arrived about 24 hours after the landing as grayscale 'scans' of the landscape with the red, green and blue filters. The 3 component images came in with the red brightest and the blue the dimmest, which when initially combined appeared so red that they were skeptical of the colors. The initial hurried release of that image occurred 8 hours after the data was received. The intent was to make the sky a neutral gray, but during the photograph's mass printing from a master negative the color balance of that first batch somehow drifted toward the blue, giving an initial 'Earth like' impression to the scene and sky. This initial release (upper left) appeared on TV news and the covers and color spreads of many magazines. Later (lower left) A slightly 'over corrected' version emphasizing the reddish ambience was released. Later work with the digital files shows an approximation of the scene as if lit by noon sunlight with minimal ambient contribution (upper right) and an approximation of the scene with the ambient lighting from the bright butterscotch colored sky factored in (lower right). This is the closest to what eventual human explorers could see and photograph there with their own cameras. The initial prints were distributed, I was fortunate to get one which I still have, and a large color print was shown on an easel, which people were gathered at transfixed, staring at this first 'window' into Mars. High end color CRT monitors with that image were scattered across the press area. They were adjusted better than the prints, using separate RGB adjustments in the back. I got close to one monitor and someone warned me not to touch it, that someone had just gotten yelled at by Jim Martin for playing with the colors! I later learned more about this story, which contributed to a conspiracy narrative which the early internet conveyed that NASA was trying to hide the true Earthlike appearance of Mars.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

Here is one more pre mission Viking related painting, the 9 X 36 foot oil painting on canvas I executed over a couple weeks or so at JPL. This was, as before, a summary of my understanding and assumptions about the landing site. I deliberately painted the scene with an eye level horizon. #Sciart

When the painting was (nearly) done I was photographed with Viking mission project head Jim Martin. I gave him and some mission bigwigs a slide show of my art in a darkened office, when I showed the painting of Viking on the surface that I had done for Jack McCauley he laughingly expressed concern about all the rocks I had portrayed. Last I heard years ago the work was rolled up and stored somewhere, but I don't know if it has survived. The left portion of the mural as it should be seen, well lit and color balanced. Some of the original 'rolled' texture of the canvas can be seen on the lower left, alas it was not properly glued to a rigid surface but simply stapled on, although competently so. The usually not seen lower right of the mural. Photographed as a test of the functioning panoramic camera on the Science Test Lander, which also had a functioning sampler arm to rehearse its movements in a sand box with rocks carved in styrofoam placed before it matching those in the real scene. Holger Isenberg rescued this and other Viking test images from obscurity and shared them with me. A unique photo of my backdrop painting by the replica camera on the Science Test Lander. This is from a color print given me later on, I don't know if the digital data from this camera test has survived.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

Mars as imagined just before the landing. This painting, one of a trio done for NASA HQ, ended up being used for the JPL landing press badge. What a thing that was to see when I arrived and signed in!

This painting was, as is much of Astronomical/Space art, a summary of what was known of the subject as well as what about it I found visually appealing. Low gravel bar ridges and dunes dominate the scene, based on the original landing site chosen in Chryse Planita. A suggestion of sedimentary layering is shown in the lower right foreground knoll. The sky was portrayed as blue, making the assumption that it would be like a Stratospheric altitude Earthly sky. Earth is the daylight star just to the left of the lander. The aeroshell on it's parachute from which the lander was dropped drifts downwind in the distance to the left. The reference materials I had available then were a step or two short of how the lander actually appeared, with the biggest difference being the lack of the rubbery fabric covers over the propellent tanks. #SciartThe press badge issued to media at the JPL press area. The last appearance of the Mars of old based on imagination and educated guesswork. This badge is now among my treasured trophies.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

And of course in addition to the Viking 1 landing there is also the highlight of all space related anniversaries today, that of the landing of Apollo 11 on the Moon. The memory of this event is a highlight of of many people in my age group. The Moon became part of human affairs then, and will again.

This is a panorama made of still frames from the video from the surface during their EVA. Earlier camera angles were combined with a good frame showing the Astronauts from when after the camera pointing was finalized. This panorama is from the first color film photos made out the windows after landing but before their EVA. The bright area at the top of the Lunar Module shadow is the strongly back scattered character of the ground, driven largely by the glass globule content of the surface layer where the shadows of the heads of the Astronauts would be. It's like the signs with glass bead carrying paint that reflect ones headlights back to you.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

I will show my Viking related art in a slow trickle over the next few days, as there is a fair amount of it and a new one is coming. This is a pre mission oil painting done for then USGS Astrogeology branch chief Jack McCauley, based on his anticipations of how the landing site could appear.

This mid 70s oil painting attempts to summarize a leading Astrogeologist's idea of what the surface of Mars in the general intended landing zone on a wide flood plain might look like. Jack McCauley familiarized me with his work in the coastal deserts of Peru and photos of the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, places where likely Mars like surface features could most be seen on Earth. Streamlined 'gravel bars' preserve an ancient wash, with blowing dust filling some of the deeper winding channels. Small impact craters continued to form since the climate dried up. The dark sky suggests the anticipated visual appearance at the known atmospheric density, of course not accounting tor the eternal dust pall that actually ended up brightening the daytime sky. The lander was based on photos of models available at the time. #Sciart
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

I'll never forget that long night 50 years ago now. After a tense wait suddenly a voice on the speaker announced 'Touchdown-we have touchdown!' and the press area erupted in cheers and applause. All night people took in the moment, with celebrities being interviewed in front of the lander mockup.

The long vigil in the Press auditorium, with journalists from all over the world gathered there. I managed to get press credentials through Sky and Telescope, which I had just begin a long fruitful relationship with as the first of my covers for them portrayed this mission. As the anticipated landing time approached things grew quietly tense, with the slightest ambience of typing, scooting chairs and scribbling on paper. Descent related data was being announced, altitudes, etc then at 5:12 AM suddenly 'Touchdown, we have touchdown!' was announced by the same voice, bringing extended clapping and cheering. Later in the night the gathered luminaries in space, and a generous sprinkling of celebrities, Chatted, expressed their happiness and helped make the occasion memorable. In those days the JPL space mission arrivals were attaining the status of 'Gatherings of the Tribes' as space writers, journalists in film and TV media and even space artists worked to be there through at times creatively concocted affiliations with space related outlets and people. This 'Tribal Gathering' status perhaps peaked during the Voyager missions under JPL Public Affairs head Frank Bristow. Polaroid SX-70 photo.Two very different writers about Mars, Carl Sagan and Ray Bradbury. Journalist Roy Neal is at the right. Ektachrome slide.Jules Bergman, Carl Sagan and Stewart Brand looking at the first images of the surface of Mars. Ektachrome slide.Nichelle Nichols and Gene Roddenberry in front of the Science Test Lander, with my backdrop mural. Ektachrome slide film.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

The first glimpse of the Martian surface was long anticipated. Bonestell's art dominated ideas of what Mars was like, basically the desert Southwest with most air absent. The idea of a dark blue sky on Mars persisted in space art until that morning. Here are those first looks at the Martian surface.

Top: the first view of the Martian surface, which appeared in slow steps left to right as the data came in. They wanted first thing to know if the lander was on solid ground and not too buried, sinking etc. The imaging sequence started 25 seconds after landing and continued for 5 minutes as the camera scanned a vertical line at a time moving to the right to scan the next. Having the orbiter relay the data took another 20 minutes. At left a brightening in the image can be seen that intensifies then fades, followed by a darkening that soon goes away. That represents a kind of record of the dust kicked up by the landing that brightened the field of view, then the shadow of the dust cloud briefly darkened the scene. The prominent angular rock near upper center is about 10 cm (4 inches) across. This first peek reassured everyone that the lander was on solid ground. A little dirt kicked up by the lander rockets can be seen pooled in the footpad. Bottom: 6 minutes after landing the second photo was obtained, a lower resolution 300 degree wide panorama of the surroundings taking in the scene in 9 minutes. At once the character of the scenery showed its distinctive nature, rocky and lightly even ground with small drifts and patches of lighter fine dust. The presence of dust in the atmosphere brought a brightness to it that was not anticipated, as an artist that was the major revelation I felt when looking over the scene. The atmospheric density was known to be like Earth's at 40 kilometers or 130,000 feet, so any noticeable blue sky brightness should only be evident near the horizon. In reality, the eternal presence of wind blown dust makes the sky a luminous version of the color of the ubiquitous surface dust, especially in the quarter of the sky near the Sun. Suddenly rendered dated were all those paintings by Bonestell, Pesek and others which were done between the times of the Mariner missions and the Viking landings, showing interpretations of known features but … I had my Polaroid SX-70 camera with me when just after the landing I was suddenly escorted from the press area into into the imaging team room, hastily badged and plopped in front of some of the many monitors in the area which steadily unveiled the first two looks at the Martian surface. No journalists were there dur to JPL PR department policy, but I got a few photos and a sound recording of the excited chatter of the geologists seeing Mars revealed. "Look at the exposure on that S_O_B" I remember hearing when the prominent rock appeared. Then the President called in his congratulations which went over the PA system. A highlight of my life, onr of several instances where I was in the Coolest Place in the world at that moment. My carefully obtained Polaroid from a monitor in the Imaging team area, at the conclusion of the introductory scanning of the first photo obtained of the surface of Mars.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

Something I noticed while painting my Viking lander backdrop mural at JPL in 1975. The first of a number of Viking related posts on this 50th anniversary of that unique historic occasion.

This photo on color slide film was made in i975 at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in some out of the way corner of the building where I was painting a large mural of the Martian surface. The uniqueness of the labeling, including 'This item is designed to go to the planet mars' was irrestaible to capture.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · last mo.

Last night's launch from Vandenberg was a little early for optimal lighting at liftoff, but the plume remained illuminated for a while as twilight deepened, stretching and winding about as high altitude winds tugged at it in various directions at different altitudes.

This photo was made with a Canon 6D on a tripod with 2.5 sec exposure, stretched in brightness and sharpened to bring out the variety of textures in the dispersing plume. This one was relatively subtle in its colors, with blues, white and only a small red region later at the lower right. These launches and their aftermath are remarkable sights and these images are obtained to capture them for their striking novelty, with no implied endorsement of what the payloads are or who is behind them.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Six photos with the same portion of the sky in common, showing brilliant Venus and bright Jupiter changing position in relation to the background stars between June 6th and 11th. The photos show differences in weather and atmospheric clarity between the dates.

This series of photos, made with a tripod mounted Canon 6D with the same 50mm lens, records the presence and movements of dazzling Venus and brilliant Jupiter as they passed a few degrees from each other between June 6 and 11 2026. Over the last week the brilliant pair, acting as the 'Evening Stars', crossed apparent paths in our twilight skies. At their closest on June 9 they closed to three full Moon widths apart from each other. I made it a point to capture this conjunction, not the closest between planets by any means, but a splendid sight as the two brightest planets drew close then apart over several days. Care is taken to have the same star background in all the photos, better showing the movements of the planets, two orbiting bodies seen from another orbiting body. Differences in weather, atmospheric clarity and time of exposures give each evenings photos a distinct 'look'. The last, the 11th, had clouds diffusing the light of the planets in varying and interesting ways. I would have made a time lapse sequence but the wind was near gale force and impossible to keep everything consistently still even when holding the tripod top. The evening of June 8th as the planets loomed close together in the evening twilight skies. Elusive Mercury also shone brightly near the horizon at the lower right. In the High Desert Sunsets have long 'afterglows', and as the last blue of twilight retreats, the residual sunset illumination fades and the city lights between San Bernardino and Los Angeles supply their own ubiquitous lighting on the clouds. But even in this direction, with the cumulative Western light pollution, the stars can still be captured.June 9 was the time of closest approach, when dazzling Venus and brilliant Jupiter were about 1.7 degrees apart in the sky, about three full Moon widths. When looking at the conjunction I mentally 'added' an extra Moon width outside the pair to appreciate how large Earth would look from the surface of the Moon. To the right of the planetary conjunction, Pollux and Castor are the highlighting heads of the twins of the constellation Gemini, whose nearly upright 'stick figures' are suggested by the loosely vertical groupings of stars extending below the bright stars. Mercury is not often seen but it now looms low in the West as darkness allows its visibility. Mercury made a kind of 'long triangle' with Pollux and Castor, near the horizon directly below the bright star pair.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I made this animation showing a small impact on the Moon, the resulting crater and the effects of the debris cloud passing Earth. Done originally in response to the now ruled out 2032 impact on the Moon of the small asteroid 2024YR 4, the possibility of Lunar impacts remain. vimeo.com/1197048261

These are frames from an animation I made of an impact on the Moon showing stages in the formation of a small impact crater. This was done with modeling terrain with grayscale hand drawn height maps, 3D rendering and After Effects. While this animation was composed around the possibility of a predicted Lunar impact at about 15:19 UT December 22, 2032, the possibility of a small stray asteroid hitting the Moon is always there. Flashes of modest impacts are frequently recorded on the night portion of the Moon with video camera equipped telescopes. Astronauts during the Artemis II mission reported seeing flashes across the night side of the Moon which were attributed to small impacts. The animation these frames are from portrays the formation of a new 1.5 km diameter crater over an actual location on the Moon. The spreading inverted conical debris plume is based on experiments in vacuum chambers shooting projectiles into carefully prepared sand boxes. The lowermost portions of the uneven ejecta plume fall back on the surface and make the 'rays' of crushed rock which radiate like painted starbursts from the freshest craters. The outermost portions of the plume reach escape velocity, and some of that spreading hollow conical 'spray' can reach Earth. A cloud of even fine debris passing across Earth could cause disruption of numerous satellites, a possibility that has multiplied with the proliferation of constellations of thousands of satellites. An explosive event in one could cause nearby satellites especially in their initial deployment stages to in turn be struck with a kind of 'kinetic chain reaction' taking place, the so called 'Kessler Effect' increasingly feared by those knowledgable about space matters since the idea was circulated in 1978. Along with the brief meteor cascade, numerous uncontrolled satellite re entries could be expected, one of which concludes the animation. #Sciart
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2mo ago

For the new Planetarium show in Sweden's 'Universium', 'Once Upon The Moon', I made new texture maps of the Moon for their Lunar history sequence. Here is my animated presentation of those maps with added material showing milestones over Lunar Geologic time. #Sciart vimeo.com/1197028121

The Moon Over Time

The appearance of the Earth's Moon in several stages of its long history. This is established by Lunar samples provided from different regions undergoing widely separated changes over time. The main e...

vimeo.com

Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Tonight, May 30 2026, the Full Moon rose as a glowing orange yellow globe behind the craggy mountains, giving its soft light to the scenery as it climbed while the Western twilight faded away.

This is a photograph of the Full Moon rising as twilight fell on Joshua Tree, California. This is actually an elaborate composite of three photos made within a few minutes pf each other, with detail from two others made to conform to the preferred one of the Moon symmetrically placed among the silhouetting rocks. This 'reference photo' was exposed to show the Lunar tonal details. One longer exposure was used to add detail to the mountain textures, another recorded the tonal values in the sky surrounding the Moon as soon as it had cleared the mountains, including the brighter area near the Moon. These were manually fitted to and combined with the preferred exposure using Photoshop layers.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Last night another launch plume was visible low on the Western horizon from a Vandenberg launch. The launch itself was near Sunset from Joshua Tree, so I didn't bother to look. I anticipated the plume catching the light later, and indeed as twilight receded there it was, spreading and colorful.

This photograph was made from Joshua Tree, California of the remnant plume from launch from Vandenberg last night, may 19 2026. Although the launch itself was not worth trying to see, I anticipated the plume persisting long enough to still be illuminated bu the Sun after twilight in my location. Sure enough, as the sky darkened the faint whitish wisps
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The raw photos release from Artemis II have provided a great opportunity to explore the images in their variety and variations. As a Solar eclipse was photographed, the radiating coronal streamers extended from the hidden Sun. I brought out their details by sharpening combined different exposures.

This is a combination of multiple exposures of the Solar corona and inner Zodiacal Light seen extending from behind the moon as Artemis II was entering the Moon's shadow. Sharpening was applied to bring out the radiating fine detail. This kind of detail is routinely photographed all around the Moon during a Total Solar eclipse seen from the ground, but this is the first dedicated observation of this kind from near the Moon using cameras capable of capturing the sight. In a terrestrial eclipse the Moon barely covers the Sun, here the Moon is roughly 25 times the apparent diameter of the Sun. As the eclipse as seen by Artemis II ended, a different portion of the Solar corona was seen extending from beyond the edge, or 'limb' of the Moon. This occasion was a kind of 'bloated' version of the kind of Total Solar eclipses we can see from the Earths surface. Through a cosmic co incidence, The Moon barely covers the Sun from Earth, sometimes not quite covering the entire disk and sometimes large enough to provide longer Totalities. In this spaceflight related instance the Moon is roughly 17 degrees across in their view rather than the barely Sun covering half degree we get on the ground. The Moons edge is visible across the entire frame as the wider diffused outer corona and the inner Zodiacal Light extend across a wide area of the sky. Multiple exposures were carefully combined and sharpened to bring out subtle low contrast details in the Solar corona.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Tonight's rocket launch took place against a bright early twilight and was thus washed out. However, as usual, the sunlight played across the stretching and twisting remaining vapor column, which is initially a silvery white. The setting Sun's last light on the vapor gives it a striking red color.

This is a photograph made of the residual plume from the launch of April 29, 2026 from Vandenberg. When local Sunset in Joshua Tree, California took place a half hour previously, the fading sunlight colored some cirrus clouds beyond the frame a red/pink color, and the Western sky was a bright amber pink at the time of the launch. This made the launch itself marginal to observe, although people far to the East into Arizona etc would have seen it against a darker later twilight. The remaining plume, however persists and is itself worthy of observation over time. Beginning as a gracefully arcing path, it quickly shows the effects of the high altitude winds blowing in different directions at different altitudes. It at first becomes a zigzagging path then is steadily pulled into stretched and knotted looking shapes. From the great altitudes of the plume along its length one would see the Sun at first above the horizon, casting on the vapor a harsh almost blueish white light not yet filtered by the atmosphere as we get it on the ground. The Sun setting behind the thousand mile distant horizon is highly reddened in its last traces, with whatever color predominating in the twilight visible from that altitude then determining the colors of the fading illumination, a process that happens at later times in higher altitudes and differs with the whims of local conditions. Thus from the illumination colors some sense of the three dimensional structure of the illuminated distended mass can be had over time. As I typed this I had a sudden impression of a drawing of a Road Runner bird, which I occasionally see here.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3mo ago

An April 1980 oil painting, Possibly the first showing the impact hypothesis of the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. Then no one knew where the crater was so I arbitrarily put it in distant Mongolia. A group of Saurornithoides are having their feast interrupted by a huge nearby impact.

This is an oil painting on illustration board portraying the impact that ended the Age of Dinosaurs. This 1980 work may well be the first painted portrayal of this hypothesis, although it took another decade for its location to be determined. As in space art, Dinosaur art over the decades preserves something of the knowledge and especially the limitations of related knowledge at the time it was created. My choice of Mongolia as the impact site reflected our lack of a determined impact location then. The predatory Dinosaur Saurornithoides shows the 'pre feathers' ideas of what such animals were like. They certainly look 'naked' after decades of seeing paintings of feather covered smaller Dinosaurs, but ideas changed and this painting freezes in time the state of related knowledge and ideas of the time in which it was created. #Sciart
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Tonight's launch from Vandenberg was late enough that it reached the sunlight only relatively late in its ascent. When it did it rose through first the red of the last filtered sunlight, then climbed to the daylight with a striking pale blue radiance coloring the upper portion of the plume.

This is a photograph of the launch from Vandenberg the evening of April 22, 2026. It was obtained from Joshua Tree, California. The rocket plume is climbing into the sunlight, with the lower and rear portion illuminated red from the dolor of the fading sunlight one would see from that location. Higher up the sun shines on the spreading plume, strikingly blueish white. This is partly due to the character of unfiltered sunlight which appears a little 'blueish' compared to what reaches the ground. It is also driven by the way the plume particles, mostly water vapor, scatters light which particularly in the general direction of the Sun emphasizes the blue wavelengths. During the entire climb visible from Joshua Tree the bottom of the plume remained reddish, as the Sun was apparently being extinguished by the atmosphere as seen from it's entire lower portions.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3mo ago

On Earth Day, our home world seen from behind the Moon photographed 53 years apart with hand held cameras. Top: A crescent Earth rising from behind the Moon from Artemis II. Bottom: The gibbous Earth setting behind the Moon from Apollo 17. The rugged Lunar horizon cuts off Earth in both views.

In both of these views, photographed with hand held cameras, the night side of the Moon is hiding part of the blue and white Earth. Mountains and irregularities on the Moon are silhouetted against the bright Earth, which from the vicinity of the Moon appears four times as large as the Moon appears in our skies. The upper recent view was obtained with a digital camera during the Artemis II, the bottom one with a medium format film camera during the Apollo 17 mission.