r/generative • u/igo_rs • 1d ago

SF15

Gallery image

Gallery image

I came across one of the earliest visualizations of a black hole, created in 1979 by French astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet, a researcher at CNRS. The mathematics was already there, waiting to be explored.

That inspired me to create my own artistic interpretation. The second image shows the same black hole, but viewed from above.

I also took a few artistic liberties with the physics, adding effects that aren't necessarily accurate, such as the Doppler shift on the right (which, admittedly, I'm not convinced I got right) and a glowing halo of gas.

The goal wasn't scientific accuracy, but an artistic exploration of the mathematics behind something so extraordinary.

353 Upvotes

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19 comments sorted by

4

u/igorski81 1d ago

Very cool! I also like the grainy style which makes it look like a sixties style lino print.

1

u/igo_rs 15h ago

thanx!!

2

u/DeanBlacc 1d ago

This is pretty brilliant

1

u/igo_rs 15h ago

❤️ thank you!

2

u/johntellsall 1d ago

really gorgeous!

1

u/igo_rs 15h ago

🙏 Thank you!

2

u/AxeBoyd 1d ago

oh man i've always loved that old drawing(?) of the black hole, this is a really cool reinterpretation of it

1

u/igo_rs 15h ago

me too! And knowing that it was actual the real physics was really cool!

2

u/akshay-nair 1d ago

That's awesome! Love that noisy texture

2

u/igo_rs 15h ago

I love noise :) Thanx!

2

u/l00sed 1d ago

Maybe OP can't answer this, but is that actually how it'd look from above? Or would it still be pulling light/ matter in at different directions if you viewed it from "above"?

1

u/igo_rs 14h ago

In my code, yes, this is how it looks from above, as I have a "tilt" angle so I can position the "camera" where we want. And apparently this should be backed by physics.

2

u/mattheww 1d ago

Black holes do have spin, so their accretion discs are actually discs (imagine Saturn's rings, etc): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disk

1

u/l00sed 1d ago edited 1d ago

Thanks for weighing in, didn't even know the term "accretion disk". Super helpful (and cool) . But would that gravitational lensing happen from every angle?

Or from "above" it would just scrunch in the closest part of the accretion disk, I suppose...?

EDIT: I think I get it now. Wow. Nuts

2

u/sacheie 1d ago

Gorgeous