Pencil on paper, 2020
A drawing addressing the fragmented nature of astronomical images. Technology today affords a seamless processing, so it is no longer perceptible that most of the images published by astronomy are composites of many, sometimes hundreds, of raw images. I tracked down the raw images corresponding to some of the better-known images published by the Cassini mission, those showing Saturn backlit by the sun. I inverted the images and created my mosaic versions, this time foregrounding the overlays, the gaps, and misalignments. My composition attempts to reconstruct the familiar image of Saturn and its rings. The process made me think about how much our familiarity depends on centuries of perfecting imaging technologies.
This work developed as part of Uncalibrated, my PhD practice-led research responding to the unprocessed images from the Cassini mission to Saturn. The Cassini raw images are public and can be found here. To view more of my works connected to the PhD click here.
