Speaker: Stephen van Vuuren
Our October meeting featured Stephen van Vuuren describing his fascinating multi-year project to produce a science documentary for IMAX and other giant screen theaters titled In Saturn’s Rings. This amazing film is made entirely with real imagery from the Cassini Saturn probe, Hubble Space Telescope and other space missions. In Saturn’s Rings provides stunning images of the Earth, Moon, Milky Way and an eye-popping fly-through of Saturn’s system – all in 6K resolution.
Edge-on view of Saturn’s rings
Stephen van Vuuren on stage in the Daily Planet
Stephen van Vuuren
This meeting, a joint RAC and Museum Science Cafe event, started off in the Daily Planet Cafe where Stephen gave an interesting slide talk about his project and the challenges faced to produce such a film. About 70 people filled the cafe and heard Stephen describe how he and an international team of volunteers has processed over 1 million images from Cassini, Hubble and other sources for his project. His team used some innovative multiplane techniques to create a dramatic fly-through effect for Saturn and other objects.
After the slide talk, everyone moved over to the Daily Planet theater for a screening of some incredible new portions of the film including some fly-through sequences at Saturn. The audience had a lot of great questions for Stephen and he very patiently answered them all.
In Saturn’s Rings is expected to be complete in early 2015 and will hopefully debut locally on the IMAX screen at the Marbles Museum. If you are interested in learning more about this film, go to the website: In Saturn’s Rings
