Update: NatGeo has an excerpt online!
A new documentary about Hubble and astronomy, called "Hubble’s Amazing Universe", will air on the National Geographic Channel this Sunday, October 5 at 10:00 p.m. Eastern (check your local listing, though).
The director and producer, Dana Berry, knows Hubble; he worked on producing Hubble images for many years at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is where I first met him. He is one of the best astronomy illustrators and animators in the world, and his stuff always amazes me. Over the years we’d bump each other (my group at Sonoma State U even commissioned a piece from him for some work we were doing, and I used two of his pieces of art in my book), and then last year he told me he was creating a Hubble documentary. Would I be interested in being in it?
Duh.
 |
| Who’s this dork? |
So we taped an interview at an astronomy meeting last January, and finally, after all these months, the show airs this weekend. Dana (and associate producer Vivian Lee) sent me an advance copy, and I just watched it. The show is pretty good! It covers a lot of ground, from the births and deaths of stars, to dark matter and dark energy. The animations and imagery are excellent, much better than usual for such a show. There are some great impact animations, ones I hadn’t seen before, that were extremely cool. And of course, the Hubble images themselves. Hard to go wrong there.
The version they sent me wasn’t quite final, so I’m curious to see how it’ll look and sound on TV. But I don’t think it will disappoint. As with any documentary, you can’t get too deep — there just isn’t time with such a broad subject — so it’s mostly descriptive, not explanatory. The point is not to explain things thoroughly, but to evoke a sense of wonder. I think that’s accomplished very well by the show.
If I had any beef (and it’s minor) it’s that the show makes it seem that Hubble is the only ‘scope that exists (and I’ll admit that I have a line late in the show, right at the end, that doesn’t help). Hubble is very important, have no doubt, but it works with a team of dozens, hundreds of other observatories. Without them, our picture of the Universe, even with Hubble, would be incomplete. But again, the show is about Hubble, and time was limited, so it’s difficult to spend much time talking about the teamwork.
That’s a minor quibble in an otherwise well-done piece (well, there are some really trivial things, like talking about the Hubble Deep Field but showing the Ultra Deep Field, but man, that’s anal even for me). I hope it eventually comes out on DVD for people to get. There was a lot of footage that got left on the floor, of course. One thing Dana did was to get three of us astronomers together at a restaurant and have us sit over dinner and talk about specific images. Geoff Hester talked about the Pillars of Creation, and we philosophized over the Deep Field. Sadly, that footage didn’t get into the documentary, and I’d love to see it. Someday, maybe.
I hope Dana continues to make documentaries. This one was a great start, and there are plenty of topics left to cover. So don’t forget to watch the show on Sunday!
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:08 am
Dude, where’d your eyebrows go?
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:11 am
Neat! I’ll definitely look for it. One of the things that gives me a little thrill about these documentaries is that as I watch I end up saying, “I know that person… I know this person… Yep, I know her too. ” The Universe series is especially that way for me. One of the benefits of being in Astronomy for a while, I guess.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:19 am
Just got an HD TV. This is definitely on the must-see list. Hmmm…Phil in HD…hope your makeup is better than Joe Biden’s.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:44 am
Cool….makes me wish I had access to NatGeo. Hoping it will get shown on a steam powered channel some day soon. BTW Where is that photo of hubble from? I LOVE IT!
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:47 am
Thanks, Phil. I’ll set my DVR to record that.
I remember Dana, too, from the Space Telescope Science Institute days. I love his art work.
Not to be anal or quibble, but doesn’t Hester spell his name “Jeff” and not “Geoff”?
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:49 am
Someone send me an email to remind me to set my DVR.
Actually, something like this won’t be hard to forget. Hubbub does have a good point though.
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:01 am
One: You look like a much more serious person without your specs.
Two: Our picture of the Universe is still incomplete even with the Hubble and every other telescope ever constructed. It’s just that it is a lot more complete than it would have been without Hubble & Co.
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:02 am
Ok.. now I have a reason to subscript to my cable company’s Premium package – why is Disney Channel included in Basic package but not National Geographic.
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:08 am
From the photo, it looks like you’re going to tell us just how serious Hubble is.
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:23 am
My soon to be 8 year old daughter loves astronomy. Her favorite show is “If we had no moon”. I hope that this show will increase her desire for knowledge like the other show. I will mos def will be recording it for multiple viewings.
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:31 am
Dana’s a dear. When I was working the first draft of my first book about HST (written back before the End Times), he was very generous with artwork and explanations of illos, etc. I can’t wait to see this! Thanks for the heads-up, Phil.
(I’ve written a couple of documentaries about HST, but they only show up on planetarium domes… not NatGeo…)
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:33 am
If only us fictional creatures hiding in the woods had cable TV! Oh well, I guess I am still more lucky than Yeti; I apparently somehow have an internet connection so I know what I am missing.
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Ooooo, Phil in high res. This is a must-see.
What _did_ happen to your eyebrows?
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Is that image of the Hubble an actual picture or is it an illustration. Either way it’s stunning!
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Awwwwwwww maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, NGC is a premium channel here, and my stupid building manager is too cheap to pay for anything more than basic! Oh, for the Good Old Daze when NG specials were on regular network TV!
October 3rd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Thanks for the heads up. I just programmed my TiVo to record it in HD. I think this will look great in HD.
-Derek
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
It covers a lot of ground, from the births and deaths of stars, to dark matter and dark energy.
Shouldn’t that be covers a lot of SPACE?
Tah-dum-dum
J/P=?
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
You look better with glasses on, Phil.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:50 pm
That image is a 3D render. I did the models and a fellow animator, Josh Brown, did the animation. In fact, he swiped all the Hubble animations I wanted to do, except the first one.
There’s a few shots that didn’t get in the final cut, like the pillars, just due to time constraints. This was a very ambitious undertaking. The Shoemaker Levy impact shot alone took 6 weeks to do, including changes.
He Who Is Just Geeked That ‘The Bad Astronomy Guy’ Saw His Work.
October 4th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Thanks for letting me know, Dave. I really like that image.
October 4th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
“Duh.”
You are truly filling Randi’s shoes.
October 5th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
[...] a quick reminder: the Hubble documentary I’m in will be on the national Geographic Channel tonight! It’s at 10:00 p.m. Eastern time (8:00 [...]
October 5th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Being a Hubble fanatic with all of its great pics, I would have watched this special just for its content. But since one of our dear friends, Vivian Lee, who was the associate producer on this show, was a part of this, I had to watch and it did not let me down. Everytime I look at the pics from space, I always wished that I lived in a time when we had the techologies to venture to those galaxies, quasars, and other planets. Space is just an awesome concept.
Viv – great job!!!
October 6th, 2008 at 8:11 am
‘Hubble’s Amazing Universe’ is airing again on Oct. 12, 2 PM central, National Geographic Channel. Be sure to check your local time and listing.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Great show! Watched it last night. Very current too since they even mentioned the recent failure of the transmitting thing….or whatever it’s called.
June 28th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
[...] National Geographic documentary on the Hubble Telescope "Hubble’s Amazing Universe" Hubble documentary on NatGeo | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine Very good, I really enjoyed [...]