Kickstarter

By Carla Jackson

Okay, as of noon today, the "Black Sun" campaign hit $4,240. That means we need a little less than $850 more per day (including today) to make our goal. When you break that down:

If 18 people give about $47 per day, or 36 people give about $24 per day for 7 days, we are DONE!

This is SO DOABLE! Please encourage a friend to give; we are really close, pretty please... http://kck.st/J2q1qy

Thank you for donating. You rule! :)

By JC Holbrook

Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi is the other protagonist of "Black Sun". He is a professor at the Florida Institute of Technology (Florida Tech). As with Alphonse, Hakeem studies the solar atmosphere. In "Black Sun", we will follow both Hakeem and Alphonse to Australia in November.

From the introduction video below, you can see the comedic side of Hakeem. :-) Of course, I had to ask him to say his name and spell it! This footage was taken while filming Hubble's Diverse Universe. I thought that I would show it in order to give our Backers a sense of his personality.

Both Hakeem and Alphonse love their jobs, love their research, and they get great joy out of their work. We will capture all of this, as well as their friendship in "Black Sun".

Donate today and tell a friend!

Some people think that if they can only give $10 or $20, then we don't want it. So not true. Small adds up to large. For example, Carla used to work at The headquarters of The So. Cal. Salvation Army. They received millions of dollars per year. Average donation: $25. Yep, $25. It all counts.

Kelvin Phillips (Co-director) and Carla Jackson (Co-producer)

By JC Holbrook

Today I am driving to Los Angeles where I will spend a week at the University of California, Los Angeles. On Wednesday afternoon I will be showing my documentary film "Hubble's Diverse Universe" for the Astronomy Colloquium http://www.astro.ucla.edu/announcements/colloq.shtml. The screening will be free but unfortunately parking is not free at UCLA. 

Hubble's Diverse Universe features nine minority astrophysicists talking about the Hubble Space Telescope http://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/archive/hubble/. In the astronomy and astrophysics community we refer to the Hubble Space Telescope as HST or simply Hubble. Hubble has defined and dominated astronomy for the twenty-one years it has been in orbit, even when it did not have the lens correction. As astrophysicist Eric Wilcots says in my film, "The images are immediately recognizable and are works of art." HST is the rock star of telescopes with everyday people because of those images. 

This is an image of the Orion nebula taken by HST in 2006. For my dissertation I studied the cluster of stars that are embedded in the cloud behind the bright cluster of four stars visible in the yellow region of the image. The cluster that I studied is visible at infrared wavelengths. You may have heard the Orion nebula called "a stellar nursery", i.e. a place where stars are being born. 

In Hubble's Diverse Universe the astrophysicists talk about HST and the images and their roles in building instruments for HST. They talk about their research and the role of NASA in their careers. They also discuss the lack of diversity in astronomy and astrophysics. Hubble's Diverse Universe captures what they think about HST, astrophysics, and being a minority in astrophysics. 

There has never been a telescope like HST and the James Webb Space Telescope hopes to do what Hubble has done and more http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/. 

If you cannot be in Los Angeles this Wednesday, you can still see Hubble's Diverse Universe: It is our gift to anyone who donates $50.00 or more to this project.  

Donate Today!

By JC Holbrook

Dr. Alphonse Sterling (The Mysterious Alphonse!) is the NASA Hinode Chief Planner at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. So why does he live in Japan? "Hinode" is the name of a satellite that observes the Sun see http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/index.html and http://solarb.msfc.nasa.gov/. Hinode is actually led by JAXA and they have partnered with NASA and the European Space Agency for the Mission. Hinode observes the Sun in optical, extreme ultraviolet, and X-ray wavelengths of light. Alphonse is the NASA representative to JAXA for the Hinode mission. 

When we are in Tokyo we will film Alphonse at work and learn about the day-to-day operations of Hinode. Hinode has been very successful scientifically! They have recorded all the major solar eruptions since it was launched in space. I love this film that shows the amazing detail of the Sun's surface that can be seen by Hinode: http://solarb.msfc.nasa.gov/movies/zoom_aug.mpeg. 

Alphonse was in Tokyo during the earthquake and we want to know what was his experience. 

Thank you to all of our Backers! Continue to encourage others to donate to Black Sun.