Image of the Week

Moss Art

Base of a tree with moss after a rain. In the upper right corner of the image, a small puddle in a crevice of the base is visible.

—Joseph Chiara, Alexandria, VA, USA

12 Apr 2021

Reconstructed Bunny

Binary cyclic S-matrix patterns, which were used to capture an active mode single-pixel image of a low-poly sculpture of the Stanford bunny. The results of this imaging experiment were published in Optics Express.

—Patrick Kilcullen and Jinyang Liang, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), Quebec, Canada

05 Apr 2021

Soap Films

Soap films on a metal grid show interference with the incidence of white light. Image obtained at Soft Matter Lab, EACH-USP.

—Alberto Tufaile, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil

29 Mar 2021

Sunset Over Taketomi Island

The image is a synthesis of six photos taken 15 minutes apart from exactly the same position. It shows the trajectory of the sun and consecutive reflection trails of the sun on the water in Okinawa, Japan.

—Theodoros Bouloumis, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan

22 Mar 2021

Space Art

This unique, digital artwork was created using data from the Juno-Cam imager on NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The tumultuous atmospheric zones in and around Jupiter’s Great Red Spot are highlighted by the artist’s use of colorful fractals.

—Mik Petter, NASA, USA

15 Mar 2021

Patio Lights

The image shows the refraction of light coming from a line of LEDs on a patio through the curved bottom of a glass, which has a large refractive power due to the bottom's nonplanar geometry.

—Guillermo A Perez-Lobato, UNAM, Mexico

08 Mar 2021

Arago Spot

In a simple educational demonstration to show the wave nature of light, an Arago spot is visualized with a laser pointer and a chainlet. The photo was taken with a cellphone, and the laser beam was expanded with a diverging lens.

—Víctor Jair Ojeda Hernández, University of Guanajuato, Mexico

01 Mar 2021

Light Painting

A light painting of residential lights taken at night with a cell phone using a 1-second exposure. The sinusoidal pattern was generated by hand during the exposure.

—Christina CC Willis, Colorado General Assembly, CO, USA

22 Feb 2021

Butterfly Wings

A single snapshot taken with the MCAM Falcon gigapixel microscope by Ramona Optics. [Editors’ Choice, OPN 2020 Photo Contest]

—Gregor Horstmeyer, Ramona Optics, USA

15 Feb 2021

The Beauty of Nonlinear Optics

This is a false-color image of a blue lace agate mineral sample, taken on a multiphoton microscope. The red color is from second-harmonic generation in the quartz mixed into this sample. The green color is from third-harmonic generation. [Honorable Mention, OPN 2020 Photo Contest]

—Benjamin M. Cromey, Ball Aerospace, Boulder, CO, USA

08 Feb 2021

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