The Unseen Face Beheld

I noticed via the Bad Astronomy weblog that the pictures of Mercury from MESSENGER would be coming in slowly, but there was a promise of some sorts of there being at least one in the near future... and this morning, on the off chance, I checked out the Planetary Society weblog and indeed saw that first picture. As I had sort of expected, that new stretch of Mercury's face didn't look that much different from what's already been seen close up, and yet that sense of "human eyes have never viewed it like this!" did strike me. Still, I suppose I did have to be told about its particularly interesting features, even as more pictures keep coming in. Mercury doesn't have the visibly darker patches that mark our own moon; its charms are subtler.

Promotion From an Unusual Direction

Leafing through this month's issue of Scientific American, I saw that its "Working Knowledge" page (a sort of "how it's done" feature) was looking at blue screen effects. One little bit in the article mentioned seeing "how software has improved matting" by getting the two-disc release of The Empire Strikes Back, also mentioned in its timeline as showing how "mini-computers automated the blue-screen process." I have to admit, though, that one of my first reactions was the ungentlemanly "What, Star Wars itself isn't good enough for you?" Then, though, I remembered how, when watching the Vintage Editions, it was during The Empire Strikes Back that the visible matte lines really started catching up to me. I suppose that's one product of having a lot of special effects composited against blue sky and white snow. Still, some other points in the article did seem a little sketchy to me as well, such as referring to "computer-animated characters" in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?