Space at your place – Photo competition for the launch of astronaut Alexander Gerst
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Call to participate: On Wednesday, May 28th, 2014 at 21.56 clock CEST German ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst will launch to the International Space Station. He will live, work and conduct research for six months aboard the ISS. We call on you today to bring space to your place and take a picture of it. The photo should show a spaceship in front of a beautiful background in your vicinity. This is easily done with an app. For this, you need only a recent Android smartphone or an iPhone. With the photo you can win one of ten autographed pictures of Alexander Gerst.
And that’s how your pictures may look like:
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How to participate:
- Download the free NASA app ” Spacecraft 3D” and install it: Android or iOS
- Print out the PDF file http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/apps/images/3dtarget.pdf and cut out the ‘AR target’
- Select a nice background for the photo in your area
- There, launch the app and choose your favorite spaceship in the ‘select spacecraft’ menu
- Bring the printed “AR target” in the picture and move it into a good position against the background
- Make a screenshot on the phone: With an iPhone press the home button and the power button simultaneously for one second, on many Android smartphones, you have to press the power button and the volume down button for a few seconds simultaneously
- Send us the screenshot , including a description of where you made the picture and what can be seen in the background
Closing date is the start of Alexander Gerst on Wednesday, May 28th, 2014 at 21.56 clock CEST. The most beautiful photos will be shown here on the blog on Thursday, May 29, 2014 and we will notified the winners of the autograph cards.
Participation
In order to participate you must give us your permission to use the photo. Our tip: Put the photo under the Creative Commons CC -BY License. In the photo also should not people be recognizable – unless you want to be happy with on the photo . Then you must also allow us to show you the pictures. The photos you can send us an e- mail attachment to online@helmholtz.de or on a publicly accessible Social Media Profile Upload and send us the link – either by e-mail, here in the comments or via one of our social media profiles.
Photo Shooting Tips
When I did the example pictures shown above, I noticed how difficult it is to make such an image alone. I therefore recommend to go out as a couple. The photographer needs both hands on the phone in order to press the screenshot key combination and can not keep the “AR target” paper in the picture at the same time. Alternatively, you can also work with a tripod for the pieces of paper. In my pictures I used my bike seat and my keychain for that. In any case, you should bring tape to attach the ‘AR target’ on the tripod. Maybe these tips will help you.
Before taking the picture, you may want to try out the app at home. It is actually intended to be used as a 3D view for the space crafts by moving the phone back and forth, turning it in multiple directions. This is also very interesting and big fun.
Update 29 May 2014: You can see the participants’ pictures here.
