[meteorite-list] OT: SKYSCAPES, OR SKY ART

From: Sterling K. Webb <kelly_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue May 31 02:05:29 2005
Message-ID: <429BFE87.27181D3_at_bhil.com>

Hi,

    Very quiet night on the List. Speaking of quiet nights...
    There a Japanese artist, Kagaya, who is a frequent painter of what
can only be called "skyscapes," a rather unusual category of art. I
call them skyscapes, as opposed to astronomical space art (although he
does that too), because they depict vivid naked eye views of the sky.
    These paintings are astronomically accurate, but are far more vivid
than a real naked eye view because they ignore the contrast effects that
limit human vision.
    To see the skies in full splendor, you have to have a dark seeing
location so black and dark that you literally cannot see your own hand
in front of your face, with no light source around you brighter than the
faintest stars (as well as waiting for your eyes to become completely
dark adapted).
    But the artist can collapse the contrast range so that all things
become equally visible, to marvelous results. Here are a few of his
skyscapes.

    Right down our alley. Meteor seen over a lake by a canoeist:
<http://www.kagayastudio.com/sora/hosibiyori/navigation/index.html>

    Night sky as seen by a mother and child:
<http://www.mmbz.com/ysjp/54703/Img8085.jpg>

    A delightfully peaceful view of the twilight (or is that twi-night)
sky:
<http://www.kagayastudio.com/sora/hosibiyori/hosisuzumi/index.html>

    Here is the artist's general web site:
<http://www.kagayastudio.com/>
    The available languages on the site are Japanese, Korean, and
Chinese, but thankfully everything is thoroughly subtitled in English,
so it's no trouble for the non-ideographic to navigate.

    Enjoy.


Sterling K. Webb
Received on Tue 31 May 2005 02:04:55 AM PDT