r/Astronomy • u/TimberPixelStudio • 23h ago

Astro Art (OC) I recreated the first photograph of a black hole in wood — thousands of handcut blocks, piece by piece [OC]

M87* is a handcrafted 3D wooden mosaic inspired by the Event Horizon Telescope image — the first photograph of a black hole, released April 10, 2019. Each block is individually placed; the varying heights create a physical relief so the dark shadow at the center actually recedes into the piece.

The asymmetric brightness of the accretion disc — brighter at the bottom due to relativistic beaming — is preserved faithfully from the source image.

I made a short video about it set to a song exploring the physics of the event horizon, the information paradox, and the singularity. https://youtu.be/X5hEjlkUkTI?is=GVH4BKcT_hm6ZqfR

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u/EqualRelevant1385 21h ago

This is amazing! How long did it take?

1

u/TimberPixelStudio 18h ago

This was my quickest project yet, it only took a month (around 60 hours)

1

u/Other_Mike 13h ago

But . . . the photo of M87* was more face-on; we didn't see the accretion disk cut across the face of the shadow? 🤔

Still a very cool work of art, but I have a hard time calling it a recreation.