Celestial Creations – Jackson Hole News&Guide

For Zoltan Levay staring at the night sky and feeling the vastness of it almost gives him vertigo.

Hes enamored, fascinated and obsessed with it. Space, stars, distant planets and galaxies led Levay into a career processing images from the Hubble telescope for our world to see.

It has been rewarding to be involved in a world-class scientific project, Levay said. I have training in astronomy, and its rewarding to be here on this project and work with astronomers all over the world, some of the most prominent scientists around.

Levay is also a photographer. He started the hobby when he was in high school, and its grown into a passion. He often, as you may guess, photographs landscapes and the night sky. He also photographs nature, cityscapes and anything that visually interests him.

At the Art Association on Friday those two passions meet in Levays art exhibit, Celestial-Terrestial Convergence. The exhibit will feature Levays original photography and images hes processed from the Hubble.

Im trying to relate the landscape were familiar with to what we see in the night sky and the deep universe, Levay said. Its all part of nature. Theres a whole universe out there thats just as spectacular and all part of our grand landscape.

Levay began his career in astronomy, and is now leading the Imaging Group in the Office of Public Outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. Since 1993 the main part of that job is processing images from the Hubble space telescope. Hes also a member of the Hubble Heritage Team, a program within that institute focused on building a library of Hubble images.

Processing makes it sounds pedantic, but what Levay does is develop the photograph the way a camera would. When a telescope captures a photograph of a galaxy in deep space, the images are raw and devoid of color.

We use filters on the camera that pick particular colors, so we reconstruct color images from those individual exposures just like any camera does, Levay said.

He compared it to the way our eyes break apart the light and color of an image and then reconstruct it in our brain so we can see it.

We use the same principles a photographer would use to make a picture thats powerful and dramatic and interesting, yet conveys the reality of what the scene represents.

Levay said his favorite image from the Hubble has the uninspiring title NGC 1300.

I like that image because it has this very dramatic form to it, Levay said. It has irregularities on top of that so its very interesting and it shows us a great depth in the universe. It shows stars that are relatively nearby, but this galaxy is millions of light years away, so you see the whole sweep of the universe in this one image.

Its those kinds of realizations, that youre staring at the universe, that give Levay a drop-in-the-stomach, vertigo feeling.

Sometimes well produce a photograph and realize this is the first time anyone has ever seen this, he said.

The same feeling comes to him when hes deep in a national park photographing the landscape.

I was Canyonlands National Park a few months ago and these landscapes seem infinite when youre there, Levay said. Youre standing on the edge of an overlook and looking down and looking out at this dramatic landscape going on forever. You have this feeling of infinity, but you realize its a teeny tiny part of existence.

Levay hopes that the pairing of his landscapes with the images of faraway worlds will bridge the distance between the two and show people how connected the ground we stand on and space are.

I hope that people get the feeling of power and scale of whats out there in the universe and the drama of these powerful landscapes here on Earth or in space, Levay said.

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Celestial Creations - Jackson Hole News&Guide