Animations
Califa: City of Light
This is a 3D animation I made for the CALIFA collaboration as teaser of the final Data Release (DR3) in April 2016, under the frame of the International Year of Light and Vincent van Gogh Year.
The Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field spectroscopy Area (CALIFA) survey is an international project that has obtained 3D spectroscopic data of some 600 nearby galaxies using the PMAS/PPAK instrument of the 3.5m Telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory (Almería, Spain).
Animation done with Blender and Music with Logic Pro X.
3D Visualization of an Optical Datacube
3D-rendered visualization of an optical datacube for the spiral galaxy NGC 2916, obtained from the CALIFA survey.
A datacube is a three-dimensional dataset used in astronomy, where two dimensions correspond to the spatial position on the sky, and the third dimension represents wavelength (or velocity). Unlike traditional images that capture a single wavelength range, a datacube provides a full spectrum for every pixel, allowing astronomers to analyze how light changes across different regions of an object.
Visualizations
CALIFA’s Mandala
I am the creator of the CALIFA’s Mandala, a visual data representation consisting of the basic physical properties of a subsample of galaxies using CALIFA datacubes: 1) 3-color broadband images (top center); 2) stellar mass surface densities (upper right); 3) ages (lower right); 4) emission lines Hα, [N II] 6584 Å, and [O III] 5007 Å (bottom center) ; 5) Hα emission (lower left); 6) Hα kinematics (upper left); 7) CALIFA logo (central hexagon). It featured the cover of the Astronomy & Astrophysics Journal (Volume 582, October 2015) and appeared in many outreach articles and documentaries.
Optical datacube