Frank Hettick

Representative Images
by
Frank Hettick

"Nebula"
by  Frank Hettick
© Frank Hettick

Commentary by the artist:  
"The larger planet and its’ moon could be our own Earth and Luna eons ago – or many millenniums in the future – in a time when our world is being introduced to the larger universe! Of course – Earth is currently in - as one author has put it 'in the outlying backwaters or fringes of a much larger galactic neighborhood – the Milky Way!'”

"Saturn above Titan"
by  Frank Hettick
© Frank Hettick

Commentary by the artist:  
"I painted this scene in late 2004 as the Cassini spacecraft approached Saturn. The largest moon in our solar system – Titan – was being scrutinized in tens of thousands of photos being returned from on-board cameras but the exact colors and cloud patterns that hid the surface of Titan was still a subject of much debate and doubt in scientific circles. I took a ‘best guess’ as to colors and appearance when I painted this piece and several months later - in January 2005 – found that my efforts seemed to be a ‘lucky spot-on depiction’ even down to the bluish-haze on Titan’s horizon. Another of my pieces – ‘Titan Touchdown’ – actually won First Place Award in the Adult Division of the joint JPL-ESA International Art Competition celebrating the Cassini-Huygens probe landing on Titan."

"Nebula Overlook"
by  Frank Hettick
© Frank Hettick

Commentary by the artist:  
"A scene of another star-system hundreds of light-years from Old Earth – as viewed from the rocky surface of a small moon of a cloudy planet. The stars appear totally alien since the constellations we are familiar with as seen from Earth are shown here from a much different perspective."

M104 Virgo Cluster
by  Frank Hettick
© Frank Hettick

"Valley on Io"
by  Frank Hettick
© Frank Hettick

Commentary by the artist:
" A gas giant some 140,000 kilometers in diameter – the planet Jupiter – looms over the volcanic surface of Io, one of the four major moons of Jupiter. Orbiting less than 350,000 kilometers away from the largest planet in our solar system, Io is almost the same size as Earth’s moon and is thought to have a very thin atmosphere of sodium atoms."

"Dreams of Andromeda"
by  Frank Hettick
© Frank Hettick

Commentary by the artist:
"An earth-like planet floats beyond the cloud-covered gas-giant in the foreground. This planetary system has a magnificent view of the Andromeda Galaxy, one of the two giant spiral galaxies in our corner of the universe. The other giant spiral galaxy is our own Milky Way which is some 2.4 Million Light Years away in this scene."

All Rights to these images are of course Reserved by the Artist.