Want to know how authentic the new Hubble 3D IMAX movie is?
Well, here's the word from Bruce Balick, a University of Washington astronomy professor and member of the design team for the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3, which astronauts installed in the May 2009 mission the film documents.
"There was brilliant, brilliant animation of the distant reaches of the universe," he said after a Thursday preview of the film, which is scheduled to open at the Pacific Science Center March 19. "I'm going to bring my (astronomy) 101 students out here in the spring, if I can pay for it, just to see that."
Gas released by a dying star races across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour, forming the delicate shape of a celestial butterfly in one of the first images by Hubble's new Wide Field Camera 3, installed during the final Hubble servicing mission in May 2009. (Courtesy of NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team)
Then there's Balick's take on the film's swooping tour through Hubble imagery of the Orion nebula.
"That scene is the equivalent of about three of my lectures."
The film is a mixture of IMAX 3D views of Hubble imagery and footage from the 2009 shuttle mission.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/archives/197619.aspSounds like fun...