![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tourmalineSaw Hubble 3D today at the IMAX cinema at Millennium Point in Birmingham. Seriously cool and awesome and amazing.
There's a fair bit about the cosmology knowledge and pictures that Hubble has given us, but most of it is about the missions themselves - there's a focus on the most recent mission, STS-125, in 2009, including all the problems they had - unscrewing screwed-together panels for things that were never designed to be serviced, the handlebar that had to be pulled off - but also some footage of previous service missions, and the deployment mission.
I've seen IMAX before, but not IMAX 3D, which was so breathtaking - the up-close views, and the sound - it was as if I was seeing the space shuttle launch for the first time, the soul-grabbing ROARRRR of the engines was unbelieveable. In comparison, the images you see on the TV and on YouTube don't do these beautiful birds justice, I know watching a live launch on NASA TV is a thrill because it's live, but on IMAX you feel like you're at the heart of it all. Also, the 3D stuff really comes into its own once the mission is in progress, with the Canadarm in operation, there's a part where it really feels like it's right next to you. And of course the big screen gives some astounding views of Earth.
Aside from the mission operations, there's plenty of footage of the astronauts, including preparation, training, a last run along the beach while in quarantine, suiting up, and in-flight stuff including the obligatory playing with one's food in microgravity. The movie is narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, who was really good and not obtrusive, sometimes the script for these narrations is like a performance, but this was pitched just right.
I'd really like to see this again, if I get the chance. There was also a trailer for a movie about people who look after baby elephants and baby orang-utans for their return to the wild, which would be so awesome to see too, the animals were so beautiful. And everyone in the theatre ducked when the elephants were playing football and the ball headed camerawards :)
There's a fair bit about the cosmology knowledge and pictures that Hubble has given us, but most of it is about the missions themselves - there's a focus on the most recent mission, STS-125, in 2009, including all the problems they had - unscrewing screwed-together panels for things that were never designed to be serviced, the handlebar that had to be pulled off - but also some footage of previous service missions, and the deployment mission.
I've seen IMAX before, but not IMAX 3D, which was so breathtaking - the up-close views, and the sound - it was as if I was seeing the space shuttle launch for the first time, the soul-grabbing ROARRRR of the engines was unbelieveable. In comparison, the images you see on the TV and on YouTube don't do these beautiful birds justice, I know watching a live launch on NASA TV is a thrill because it's live, but on IMAX you feel like you're at the heart of it all. Also, the 3D stuff really comes into its own once the mission is in progress, with the Canadarm in operation, there's a part where it really feels like it's right next to you. And of course the big screen gives some astounding views of Earth.
Aside from the mission operations, there's plenty of footage of the astronauts, including preparation, training, a last run along the beach while in quarantine, suiting up, and in-flight stuff including the obligatory playing with one's food in microgravity. The movie is narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, who was really good and not obtrusive, sometimes the script for these narrations is like a performance, but this was pitched just right.
I'd really like to see this again, if I get the chance. There was also a trailer for a movie about people who look after baby elephants and baby orang-utans for their return to the wild, which would be so awesome to see too, the animals were so beautiful. And everyone in the theatre ducked when the elephants were playing football and the ball headed camerawards :)
