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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Chit Chat _ Planetary Christmas ornaments

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Nov 14 2011, 08:47 PM

QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Nov 14 2011, 06:22 AM)

Cranking up the saturation on the last image

Ooooh. Pretty. If I could find a Christmas ornament of Vesta that looked like that like that I'd hang it on my tree. Maybe that's an idea for a future TPS fundraising product -- planetary ornaments.

Posted by: chuckclark Nov 14 2011, 09:47 PM

QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Nov 14 2011, 03:47 PM)

Ooooh. Pretty. If I could find a Christmas ornament of Vesta that looked like that like that I'd hang it on my tree. Maybe that's an idea for a future TPS fundraising product -- planetary ornaments.

Hey, that's a perfect use of the foldable maps (see Phobos, et al. over at http://rightbasicbuilding.com/asteroid-maps/phobos-and-deimos-moons-of-mars-captured-asteroids/foldable-phobos-2010/ I've been making. Our yearly tree has an extensive solar system ornamentation already.

Trouble with normal methods of 3D manufacture is the size of the production run, and by some method, printing surface features onto the object.

Nice thing about the foldable paper approach is that color printing takes place (duh) on the flat sheet, then, cut'n'fold. (Of course if my memory serves, you EGD, will draw rabbit ears on the flat map, but they'll disappear when folded.

Now all we need is for me to get my hands on an actual model of Vesta, to capture metes and bounds. Anybody out there able to contribute?

Posted by: john_s Nov 14 2011, 09:59 PM

I did a virtual version of the planetary Xmas ornament idea 15 years ago: http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~spencer/xmas96.jpg. But it would be really cool to do it for real...

John

Posted by: elakdawalla Nov 14 2011, 10:18 PM

It's been suggested before. We've looked into it and you can get circular (not spherical, sadly) ceramic ornaments custom-printed with a photo from lots of places, including our own store at Cafe Press. When we checked last year I think they were prohibitively expensive but I just looked there and the base price is $6, which is I think a lot less than it was last year. Would people buy planet-themed circular, not spherical ornaments at $8 or $9 a pop?

If I were feeling super creative I might go this route and try making my own...
http://craftsbyamanda.com/2011/09/sports-ball-ornaments.html

Posted by: Astro0 Nov 15 2011, 06:49 AM

Years ago I made a Christmas card for work that used that same theme.

and a Mars bauble too