Sunday, April 4, 2004
WORCESTER ART MUSEUM TO DISPLAY SPACE IMAGES
The Associated Press

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Worcester Art Museum has acquired three NASA photographs, including an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

The photographs will be on display in the fall as part of an exhibit called "Photography at the Worcester Art Museum: Keeping Shadows," which will document the history of photography from daguerreotypes to digital imaging, the Sunday Telegram reported.

The exhibit's Hubble image of the Keyhole Nebula will be more of an asset now that the government has announced it will scrap the space telescope program to cut costs.

"Since about the mid-'90s, the Hubble has allowed for some really great discoveries in modern astronomy and the images sent to Earth are photographic milestones," said Ben Charland, a curatorial assistant for the museum.

The other NASA photos include the moon Io over Jupiter taken by the Cassini Space Probe at the turn of the millennium and the moon Europa near Jupiter's Great Red Spot taken by Voyager I in 1979.

The museum's collection also includes images made more than 150 years ago, including the 1845 photo of the Hungerford Suspension Bridge across the River Thames by William Henry Fox Talbot, who discovered how to make multiple prints from a negative.

The collection is strong in the area of science and technology, Charland said.

Museum curators worked with Michael Benson, author of "Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes," for more than a year to select the three NASA photos in the exhibit.

Since the images of space probes like the Hubble are streamed to Earth with great frequency, there are many more images stored in databases that can be observed.

"There are thousands that no one has seen yet that are coming down and they're in the public domain," Charland said. "(Benson) spent four or five years culling the best of the best."

Benson had the digital images professional printed in Italy and the museum purchased the Hubble and Cassini images from him. Benson gave the Voyager photo to the museum as a gift.

The exhibit will run from Oct. 10 to Jan. 2.

Copyright Associated Press