Eight pairs of eyes were trained on the Hubble Space
Telescope on Tuesday as it was released into orbit after spending a week
berthed in space shuttle Atlantis' payload bay. Seven of those stares belonged
to the crew of STS-125, who worked to upgrade the satellite during that time.
The eighth captured the view for the rest of us: an IMAX
3D camera.
The 70 mm camera, best known for producing the large
format movies that museums and science centers project on giant screens, was
flown on the orbiter to document the fifth and final crewed mission to
service the telescope for "Hubble 3D",
to be released by Warner Brothers in the spring of 2010.
"The main story is to showcase Hubble and its
fantastic legacy," described Toni Myers, producer and director of
"Hubble 3D", in an interview with collectSPACE.com.
"It's sort of the life of Hubble."
"A big feature of the film will be this
repair," she added.
A mile of film in eight minutes
"This is a bigger threat, a bigger challenge, than I
had originally thought," admitted STS-125 pilot — and director of
photography — Greg C. "Ray Jay" Johnson, during a pre-flight
interview with collectSPACE.com.
"We only have 8 minutes of tape at 30 seconds a
whack, so you can screw this up," he observed.
Given weight constraints, a single, compact 3D camera was
flown inside Atlantis' payload bay. Unlike the ground based models that IMAX
used to film the crew's training and launch, which employ two rolls of film —
one for each "eye" — the orbital version records both left and right
eye images on one strip of film.
"What that means," explained Myers, "is to
maintain 24 frames a second, it has to go twice as fast. So normal IMAX is 336
feet a minute, so this one is running 672 feet a minute."
The camera holds 5,400 feet, or one mile, of tape but
that equates to just 8 minutes, and there's no reloading.
Myers developed a list of about 40 possible scenes that
Johnson might capture, ranging from the activities during the mission's five
spacewalks to this morning's deploy of the telescope. What she didn't want were
posed shots.
"No 'Hello Mom!' kind of scenarios," recalled
Johnson.
As it turned out, astronauts hamming it up for the camera
was the least of the concerns. Of greater worry was the condition of the camera
and the timing of the key mission events.
On the sixth day of the flight, spacewalker Drew Feustel
noticed that the window through which the IMAX camera shot from inside its
cargo bay enclosure was fogging up.
"Many thanks to Drew for making the catch on the
window fog," read the Flight Day 7 IMAX team notes that were uplinked to
the crew. "We can't afford to shoot the remaining seconds of film through
fog. Checking for fog... before a scene will prevent this."
The daily notes provided other tips for preventing the
fog, as well how to better frame and shoot interior crew cabin scenes using HD
camcorders that will be converted post flight to 3D.
Mostly though, the team suggested replacement shots as
scenes planned for daylight slipped into the night. As the shuttle circles the
Earth, it moves in and out of sun every 45 minutes.
"You can't plan for that very rigorously except to
know what your back-up is. So every day, I am re-planning if we've lost a shot,
how to make it up. It is sort of juggling those 8 minutes," Myers said.
"This is the prime shot of the [fine guidance
sensor] but it may be threatened by darkness per the re-planned time line. We
very much want this scene. If in real time you see that the install scene is
going to be too dark, then we need to shoot the FGS2 removal BEFORE it,"
instructed a note before the mission's final spacewalk.
Of course, some shots cannot be replaced. Not only was
the release of the telescope a pivotal moment in history — it was likely to be
the last time astronauts would be within eyeshot of Hubble — it was also the
end of the reel.
"You should allow the camera to run out on this
one," the note for today began.
Elsewhere in their morning mail, the crew was advised to
turn on the lights in Atlantis' cargo hold. "Turning on all possible
payload bay flood lights will increase the chance for successful filming,"
the note explained.
Continue reading
at collectSPACE.com to learn how "Hubble 3D" will
take people to the stars.
Copyright 2007 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.
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