Thanks for visiting Solar Anamnesis!
Meteorite Information and Links
Purchase Meteorite Thin Sections
Creating Microphotographic Panoramas
Introduction
Consider making a purchase if you like my work. Prints are available to purchase in the Menu’s Store Link above. After your print order is placed, I will manually resize the original tiff image and create an order with Bay Photo and have the image shipped to you. Profits will go towards funding the purchase of a new microscope and, once that is acquired, additional meteorite thin sections. Also, you may email me any custom order.
For most pictures I can print individual images which composed the mosaic upon special request. Additionally, I can sell you custom photo album books created via Bay Photo. These have a price range of $150 – $300. Sample pictures of the books are located in the Galleries.
Images are processed mostly with free software, including Picture Window Pro 7.0, GIMP, and ImageMagick®. However, the image focus stacking is done with proprietary software called Zerene Stacker. And if the image is too large for my personal desktop to handle (RAM size), the stitching and processing is done with GIMP on a cloud server via Nomachine.
If your camera is supported by digiCamControl, I would highly recommend this free software application over the expensive name-brand tethering software solutions. If you have a Nikon, this will save you $190.
The images viewed in the posts are in a compressed JPEG format and have been scaled down by 5-15%. The original images are massive, with many over a gigapixel and some over three gigapixels. File sizes range from one hundred megabytes to a twelve gigabytes. To view them at 300 dpi physically requires an enormous print. And to view them online requires special panorama viewing software. All panoramas are free to view online in their original size via the krpano and Gigapan links found in the posts. Before viewing, please calibrate your monitor device to ensure that you are seeing the images exactly as intended.
About Me
“Solar Anamnesis” represents a bringing forth or uncovering of ancient events long hidden to the existential life on Earth. Abstractly, through humans, Sol has achieved a mystical ability to become conscious of its own past.
Serendipity properly defines my work with meteorite thin sections. It began with a curiosity — to explore nature with a microscope, and ended as my passionate hobby. Whether looking at a fossil in thin section or observing pond water, the micro-world never ceases to amaze. It was while reading Oasis in Space by Preston Cloud that I became particularly interested in early Earth formation. Because, simultaneously, I learned of J. Marvin Herndon’s somewhat radical theory on the formation of the Solar System.
If all planets formed initially as gas giants, could I prove or falsify such a theory? Scientists know that many exoplanets are gas giants orbiting incredibly close to their host star. Might not have Earth started as such a gas giant, stripped of its outer layers by a T Tauri type wind? Or did the rocky planets form from planetesimal accretion? What evidence was there for understanding how our Solar System formed? Eventually, the answer I came across was meteorites. Meteorites hold the key to unlocking all Solar System history.
I saw that meteorites were being sold as thin sections for microscopes. And there were many images of thin sections taken under cross polarized light analysis. So I purchased some and gave it a try, and when the first photons of cross polarized light from the Pasamonte Meteorite Thin Section registered in my brain I was lost in a No Man’s Land of optical experience. It reminded me of my first sight of the Grand Canyon; stunned, bewildered – my brain unable to process the scene and properly file away what sensory information was being received.
I am inspired to present this wonderful visual experience in a way as realistic as possible. This desire has developed into taking mosaics of these thin sections and presenting them online with panorama software. I hope that my work will influence young adults to become attracted to the field of meteoritics. Because even after an education in astronomy, math, and physics I had no idea how important meteorites are to science. The more people and knowledge we acquire via meteorites, the more we will known about the formation of our Solar System.
One day I want to have all the prints on display in their full size at 300 ppi at a meteorite event or science museum. It would look similar to this:
Example Display
Background image from Dreamscapes: Behind the Scenes.
Another cool idea would be to custom cut sheet metal which has the exact shape of the thin section; this would then be overlain with a high-quality print which has also been cut in perfect alignment with the sheet metal frame. Similar to the displays shown above, except without the black background.
Social
Email local-part: solaranamnesis
Email domain: tutanota.com
PGP Public Key: Download
Gigapans
Gigapan Meteorite Thin Section Gallery
Gigapan Meteorite Surfaces Gallery
Miscellaneous
An Autonomous Agent (Personal Blog)