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HANDS-ON
BOOK OF HUBBLE IMAGES ALLOWS THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED TO "TOUCH
THE UNIVERSE"
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on image above for ordering information for this book. |
A
new book of majestic images, taken by NASA's Hubble Space
Telescope (HST), brings the wonders of our universe to
the fingertips of the visually impaired.
The
64-page book, titled "Touch the Universe: A NASA Braille
Book of Astronomy," presents color images of planets,
nebulae, stars, and galaxies. Each image is embossed with
lines, bumps, and other textures. The raised patterns translate
colors, shapes, and other intricate details of the cosmic
objects, allowing visually impaired people to feel what they
cannot see. The book incorporates Braille and large-print
descriptions, for each of the book's 14 photographs, so it
is accessible to readers of most visual abilities.
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2 | | Click
on image above to see a sample page from the book. After the image expands, click
on each picture to bring up the Braille page of the book. Note the Braille outlining
the images and the text on the pages. |
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"I
think this book will help the blind community to better understand
the variety of objects in space," explains the book's
author, Noreen Grice, operations coordinator for the Charles
Hayden Planetarium at the Boston Museum of Science. "This
book brings amazing celestial objects, seen with the Hubble
Space Telescope, to the fingertips of the visually impaired,
where they can better understand the universe and their place
within it."
NASA,
which helped fund the book, and the publisher, the Joseph
Henry Press, trade imprint of the National Academies Press
(publisher for the National Academy of Sciences), will publicly
release "Touch the Universe" on Thursday, Nov. 21,
at events at both the National Federation of the Blind in
Baltimore, and at DePaul University in Chicago. "For
the last 12 years, Hubble discoveries have not only rewritten
the science textbooks, the stunning images from HST have also
become a part of American culture. But while these images
have wowed the world, until now, there was still one group
- the blind - who could not share in this marvel," said
Ed Weiler, NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Science.
"Now thanks to this extraordinary new book, Hubble images
are literally in the hands of those who could not experience
the beauty of the cosmos before," he said.
"Touch
the Universe" takes the reader on a cosmic journey. It
begins with an image of the Hubble Space Telescope orbiting
Earth, and then travels outward into the universe, showing
objects such as Jupiter, the Ring Nebula, and the Hubble Deep
Star Field North.
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Image
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Grice
collaborated with Bernhard Beck-Winchatz, an astronomer at
DePaul University in Chicago, to develop the book with a $10,000
Hubble Space Telescope grant for educational outreach. In
1990, Grice published, "Touch the Stars," an astronomy
book containing tactile line drawings of objects such as constellations,
planets, and galaxies.
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Image
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| "Touch
the Universe" collaborators (left to right) - Bernhard
Beck-Winchatz, Benning Wentworth III and author Noreen
Grice. |
"I
thought that Noreen's book, 'Touch the Stars,' was a wonderful
idea, especially because astronomy is thought of as a visual
science," Beck-Winchatz explains. "At the same time,
when I saw the book and her sketches, I thought there was
so much more we could do. There are so many wonderful images
that are used in classrooms around the world as a hook to
get kids interested in science, and I wanted children with
visual impairments to also benefit from these amazing pictures,"
he said.
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Image
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| Student
from the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind works
on "Touch the Universe" with Noreen Grice. |
The
pair began working on the book after Beck-Winchatz received
the Hubble grant. Grice wrote the text and translated the
images; Beck-Winchatz served as science advisor. Working in
her kitchen, Grice made prototypes of the Hubble images by
tracing them on plastic sheets, using special tools to create
raised details. Grice not only tried to represent the outlines
of stars, planets, and galaxies, she also used consistent
patterns to denote color and matter. Raised lines, for example,
represent blue. Rings are illustrated with dotted lines, and
wavy ones signify gas currents.
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Image
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| Student
from the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind evaluates
"Touch the Universe" in July 2001. |
Students
at the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind in Colorado
Springs evaluated each image for clarity and provided suggestions
for improvement. Grice traced the final illustrations onto
metal plates and placed them in a heat vacuum machine to create
multiple copies of molded plastic pages. The pages became
the first prototypes of her book.
"Touch
the Universe" information is on the Internet at:
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2002/28
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| Image
15 | | Another
student from the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind gets to know the Hubble
Deep Field by touch. | To
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