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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

My portrayal of the Partial Lunar Eclipse of August 27-28, 2026. These were painted in Photoshop based on my observations through a 10 inch telescope and binoculars. Among the variable clouds I saw just enough of the event to get the observation I wanted, a look at the colors in the Earth shadow.

My setup for these events has been similar for 40 years. I have a stack of printed Moon images on a clipboard, little lights clipped on tripods and on me, and things arranged so only modest motions are needed for me to observe through the telescope and through the binoculars to get complimentary impressions of the colors. The telescope gives a detailed survey of the color differences in various parts of the Moon, The binoculars give an overall color summary and tend to show more saturated color. One then the other are peered through, and once in a while a photo is made with my still camera nearby kept aimed at the Moon. The photos are modest but provide tonal details in the shadows that supplement the sketches with low res but objective references. During this event I am furiously sketching atop the printed Full Moon image sheets, scribbling outlines of perceived color zones and writing color description labels. These labeled 'color by number' summaries are supplemented with sketches of the overall tonal values across the Moon, done on small printed circles provided for this purpose next to the larger printed maps. The time each sketch is made is always written next to it. All during the observing session I have a small portable shortwave radio tuned to WWV, with its eternal ticking off of the seconds and the voice of the Digital Time God. There I am alone in the night, just me and the rare event. The nominal shadow colors were seen, with the outermost zone adjacent to the Sunlit area a neutral gray, and smaller concentric zones of subdued golden, then orange surrounding the very dark rusty brick red, 'core'. The entire color range was seen on this occasion. I then reduced my sketches and visual memory into a pictorial summary. It is vital to do the balance of such work immediately afterwards while the visual impression is fresh on ones mind. The digital paintings were done on top of a digital Full Moon photo I obtained immediately after the Eclipse ended.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 7d ago

On this date, August 23 1966, The Lunar Orbiter 1 spacecraft obtained this first view of Earth from Lunar orbit. On the left is my treatment of the the wider angle photo taken the same time as the more widely circulated high res image. Also a contemporary poster describing the photo's context.

This is Lunar Orbiter 1 frame 1102 M, for 'Moderate' resolution. The Lunar Orbiter camera system was a modified reconnaissance satellite system that used a film camera, developing the B&W film spools and scanning the negatives and converting the opaqueness detected in the precision scanning of 'rows' into data. The signals were reconstructed on Earth making large negatives whose contact prints were impressively large, roughly 20 X 30 inches. While serving the needs of landing site investigations and map makers, the Lunar Orbiter images had issues. They were scanned on board in little strips whose tonal values did not necessarily match between adjacent 'framelet' edges, and there were sometimes repeating variations in the recorded intensity within each scanned line making up a 'framelet' which added more tonal idiosyncrasies. These were only of esthetic concern and the high quality camera system overall performed magnificently, although bad fogging of optics ruined much of Lunar Orbiter 4's systematic Lunar mapping effort and the chemical development process occasionally left defective globs on the negatives. The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project was undertaken to rescue the original telemetry data of those Lunar images. The great majority of the Mission images were successfully recovered using a lovingly reconstructed massive high end tape reader in a leftover MacDonalds building at the fringe of Moffett Field. Once the best such image data is available the various stages of accounting for and 'cancelling out' the known departures from what the pristine negative must have looked like can begin in earnest. This attempts to reconstruct something closer to what the original negative from the spacecraft could yield. The famous view that appeared in many magazines and books a the time is here seen in more of a context. The prominent dark lava filled crater is Tsiolkovsky, among the first farside features to be named. Earth is about to set for the spacecraft.This is a scan of a NASA poster from 1966 giving background to the landmark first photo of Earth and the Moon from Lunar orbit by Lunar Orbiter 1 on August 23, 1966. This photo was widely circulated at the time, in horizontal presentation, and appears in NASA's classic Special Publication SP-168 'Exploring Space With a Camera'. Lunar Orbiter was a Lunar mapping project funded in support of the Apollo Moon landing program to enable high quality maps of the Moon to be prepared, particularly of the candidate landing sites. The camera system was modified from a spy satellite design, using dual cameras with wide and narrow angle optics capturing a detail and context image. This reproduction of the narrow angle High Resolution image 1102H shows the 'stripes' caused by uneven scanning of the negative on the spacecraft, which while doing the job of conveying the needed information also bought a distinct 'look' to most photos from that mission. Scanned from my collection.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

The Sunset of August 17 2026 featured a modest formation of semi lenticular clouds to the West, however they caught the very reddened last sunlight in a dramatic display. For a few magical minutes the color intensity took my thoughts into realms of numinous wonder.

The Sunset of August 17, 2026 was a fine but small show in the Western sky at Joshua Tree, California. This is a Canon Digital SLR panorama of three frames using a 55-250 zoom lens, pretty much fully zoomed in. This dramatically lit formation was thus only several degrees across along the horizon. The colors are reasonably portrayed, the vividness may have been contributed to by a little smoke somewhere in the hundreds of miles line of sight between those clouds and the Sun. The lower clouds are visibly more reddened in the filtered sunlight than the upper ones with more orange lighting. The Monsoon weather in the High Desert has largely retreated now but a return in several days is likely.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

The Monsoon weather pattern noted earlier continues, isolated storms arising and leaving narrow water scoured paths. The Sunset of Saturday, August 15, was a nice show. To the North a grouping of Cumulus towers huddled into a surging peak with a streamlined 'cap' of ice clouds forming at the apex.

This photograph of the Sunset of August 15th, 2025 from Joshua Tree, California shows the most compelling aspect for me of this one, a nice storm far to my North. Cumulus clouds are rising as a mass and catching the subdued coppery orange filtered sunlight, the color possibly influenced by the mixing into the region of smoke from distant wildfires. The highest central mass, its summit shrouded by a cap cloud, rises high enough to reach the yellower less filtered sunlight. These are also the kind of clouds I love to paint.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

During the recent Total Solar Eclipse the South Korean Danuri spacecraft obtained a nice view of Earth from Lunar orbit with the Moons shadow just visible on Earth. Here is their image, with attribution added, my colorized version and the nearly simultaneous EPIC-DSCOVR image used for the color.

This is a reduced version of the photo released today by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. Earth is seen from Lunar orbit during the recent Total Solar eclipse. The Moon is barely showing shadows behind the sunlit surfaces, and the shadow of the Moon itself is just at the horizon, or perhaps 'Limb' better suits an orbital view. One very wide shadow shows a fuzzy edge on a distant rise. I added the attribution. This is my version of the Danuri Lunar orbiter photo, with color added. I combined their Earth photo with a color EPIC-DSCOVR image made at about the same time, rotated a little in 3D to better match the Danuri viewing angle for compositing. The sharpness of the B&W original is preserved with the DSCOVR full Earth photo mostly used for the color values. I also prefer this orientation with the foreground Moon at the bottom.This is the EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera) image from the DSCOVR satellite made at close to the same time as the Danuri image, shown in reduced form but otherwise as released. The exposure is naturally for the sunlit Earth and clouds. The Moon shadow's wide peripheral zone of gradual darkening, the 'penumbra' is where the illumination decreases as more of the Sun is eclipsed. At this time the outermost shadow area was near the Great Lakes, from this perspective a circular zone of that radius thus surrounds the progressively underexposed zone around the Moon shadow. If the exposure were adjusted to define the actual umbra, or zone of totality, the resulting small black dot in the image , about 30 percent the size of the underexposed portion seen here, would be surrounded by the greatly overexposed fully sunlit rest of the world.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 2w ago

The sunset of August 13, 2026 was quite a spectacle. Masses of dissolving monsoon weather admitted the last reddened sunlight through their widening gaps, which went on to illuminate a wide region of fortuitously placed cloud masses.

This is a panorama of the Sunset of August 13, 2026 made from two frames from a Canon Digital SLR. This is at the moment of peak illumination, with the days long wind cleaning the atmosphere between the High Desert and the coast allowing deep red Sunlight to pass great distances.This digital SLR photo captures the last fading sunlight withdrawing into the distance as the shadow of Earth inexorably moves beyond the horizon. The faraway lowermost clouds had their lighting persist for some minutes before their lit area withdrew beyond the mountain ridge.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3w ago

The scattered Monsoon weather pattern noted yesterday continued today, August 11, 2026. The last sunlight gave a nice display as it backlit a disintegrating thunderhead which was still shedding a mass of rain.

This photograph of the Sunset of August 11, 2026 shows the last reddened sunlight playing across the clouds and rain seen from the region of Joshua Tree Park, California. It was obtained with a Canon 6D, as a RAW file which was processed to optimize tonal and color values.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3w ago

The weather is changing across the High Desert. Isolated thunderstorms are appearing in the afternoons and leaving trails of dampened countryside. In the distance a nice thunderhead rose into the sky some tens of miles away, catching the last rays of the Sun as it's top flattened and spread.

This photo shows a thunderhead NE of Joshua Tree at days end today, August 10 2026. It and some neighboring clouds are catching the last reddened sunlight as moisture passes across the region. The large thunderhead to the left casts a shadow many miles down sun, it may appear as a dark gap in a twilight crepuscular ray display hundreds of miles to the East. The large thunderhead 'anvil' bathed in the reddened sunlight bringing out the textures of this vast dynamic formation.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3w ago

A panorama from the dawn of August 9, 2026. The morning twilight is lighting the clouds to the East at left near the overexposed crescent Moon, while at right to the South the light pollution from the Indio and Coachella areas illuminates the cloud undersides and brightens the sky near the horizon.

This is a panoramic mosaic of two frames obtained the Morning of August 9, 2026 from the town of Joshua Tree, California. A Canon 6D was used with the zoom lens at 24 mm, making a panorama roughly 90 degrees across. The spreading of light pollution from the Palm Springs/Indio/Coachella corridor has greatly degraded the former Dark Sky refuge status of Joshua Tree Park. Only in the far Eastern stretches of the park are the skies close to their reputation. One must now drive to isolated wild places to see the stars as they should be seen.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3w ago

A Viking art related footnote... Author and flying saucer photo fabricator Billy Meier, in a video represented as showing photos from his space voyage, used stuff from books as things he claimed to see on a 'space trip'. One of these was a painting of the Viking orbiter that I did in 1975 for NASA!

A bizarre tale was brought to my attention not long ago about a European flying saucer evangelist who claimed he had been taken aboard one and transported through space and time. Normally I wouldn't have found such a claim worthy of notice but while looking through a referenced 'extraordinary claim' video I noticed that Billy Meier shamelessly used various images from NASA in his presentation of still images he claimed to take on his 'space trip'. One of these was a painting of the Viking orbiter that I did in 1975 for NASA. In his video presentation he shows photos made off a TV monitor of images from books taken with a camcorder. I am amused that one of my works was ID'd as an alien spacecraft. It is astonishing that he thought no one would call out such a blatantly fabricated presentation. In the early 1970s that fellow faked a bunch of photos of flying saucers apparently using models etc. against European countryside, which were published in a big coffee table book I remember seeing in bookstores in the early 70s 'UFO...Contact from the Pleiades'. I remember being amused at the amateur quality of the flying saucer photos in that book. They were defocused enough to cover some sins of fabrication like strings, or were consistent with thrown models. It would be informative to examine the original negatives of his camera photos to see the ratio of used vs discarded photos of thrown models. The sheer quantity of his claimed flying saucer photos is suspicious, as if something extraordinary was going out of its way to be repeatedly photographed by him. Here is the video presentation if you want to suffer through it. It's a poor quality video of Billy Meier flipping through a photo album of photo prints apparently photographed from a TV screen showing camcorder views of varied space images, mainly from NASA releases. At 0:47 my Viking orbiter art appears. At 5:01 a Pteranodon painting by Zdenek Burian is unmistakable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CJCsPxYSuA
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3w ago

The Sunset of August 7, 2026 featured only a few fairly distant clouds low on the Western horizon, but with a 55-250 mm lens I could zoom in on an intriguing adornment, an 'Sun Pillar' forming a fuzzy vertical bar of light as the reddening sunlight was reflected by roughly aligned ice crystals.

This is a panorama made from two digital SLR frames obtained of a cloud as it was being lit from underneath by the last rays of the Sun, hidden from the ground but still shining on the fairly distant and high altitude cloud. A bright vertical glow at the right is a Sun Pillar', which is the Sun bring reflected by fairly uniformly aligned ice crystals. This Pillar assumes the color of the light source. This series of photos of the Sun Pillar accompanying the Sunset of August 7, 2026 shows the lighting changing in direction and color on the clouds. The 'Sun Pillar' persisted until the last rays left the clouds, the color becoming deeper red as that light passed through greater distances of atmosphere as seen from there.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3w ago

The twilight of July 20 was a pleasant surprise, not just because of the dramatic clearing of clouds that had shortly before made a nice Sunset, but because of the fine display of crepuscular rays spread across the pink/golden twilight.

The clouds quickly cleared the evening of July 20, revealing a magnificent spread of crepuscular rays looming from behind the distant clouds. There is a thin layer of aerosols/dust etc at roughly 25 km (16 miles ) altitude which when illuminated by the last very reddened rays of theSun at that altitude forms the balance of our twilight glow. From 25 km high the horizon is 565 km (350 miles) away with higher clouds at least a hundred km farther extending from beyond that horizon. As they block the disk of the setting Sun at that altitude they cast shadows that can approach 500 miles in length. The greatly oblique shadows of such clouds are seen here, letting more of the 'nominal' darker sky blue color show more. Apparently there is an elevated presence of light catching material in the Stratosphere. Some enhancing of the contrast of the rays has been done, often visually subtle contrasts are more easily seen with the eye than in a raw photo.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 4w ago

I finally got around to processing some sky photos made over the last few weeks. It's been 100 F (38 C) and higher every day for what seems like a couple weeks and the hot wind is relentless. Occasionally some clouds appear, and before they evaporate nice sunrise/set displays happen roughly weekly.

On July 17 2026 there was a very nice sunset, with openings in the 'curdled' looking cloud ceiling earlier allowing the Sun itself to be seen setting, Then its rays illuminated the air as they rose, fading soon just as they began touching the cloud ceiling. Digital SLR photoOn July 20 2026 the weather was fairly dynamic, with lightning storms perhaps 100 miles (160) km away. This rather distant towering display was glimpsed through gaps in nearby clouds as the last sunlight illuminated it. Digital SLR photo.On July 25, 2026 there were sparse but intriguing clouds trying to become Lenticular formations but were apparently dissolving as fast as they were appearing. In the wind driven clean air the Sunset colors were particularly intense, with the undersides of these shapes illuminated by sunlight traveling through hundreds of miles of clean atmosphere, giving the remaining light a generous helping of the red end of the spectrum. I would have liked to have made a time lapse of this but the blustery winds would cause jitter between frames.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 4w ago

'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 · 4w 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 · last mo.

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 · last mo.

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 · last mo.

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 · last mo.

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 · last mo.

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 · last mo.

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 · last mo.

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 · last mo.

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 · last mo.

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 · last mo.

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 · last mo.

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.