Astrona

Don Dixon is an American astronomical and space artist, co-founder of the International Association of Astronomical Artists (IAAA). He has been creating professional space and science-fiction related artwork which has arguably been viewed by more people than any other living practitioner of space art. His spacescapes have graced over 60 book covers (include science-fiction novels of Isaac Asimov), scores of magazines, physics compendiums, etc, and are in the collections of Ray Bradbury and Larry Niven. Since 1991 he has served as Art Director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California, where he directed and co-authored the acclaimed full-dome animated film Centered in the Universe. He has been Artist Guest of Honor at several science fiction conventions and has exhibited in Oslo, Berlin, and Washington, D.C. His painting "Red Mars", cover painting for the first book in Kim Stanley Robinson's award winning trilogy, rode the Phoenix spacecraft to a successful landing in the arctic region of the Red Planet on May 29, 2008 as part of the digital "Martian Library."

Don Dixon began his artistic career in the 1970's, creating animation to illustrate NASA's early missions to the planets. He has been a guest of NASA at several space exploration "firsts", such as the Viking 1 landing on Mars and the Pioneer 11 flyby of Saturn, for which he designed the mission logo. Like all in the field, he was influenced by the work of Chesley Bonestell, who believed that scientific accuracy was essential in the astronomical art genre. He stays abreast of developments in physics and astronomy by consulting with prominent scientists as he illustrates their latest discoveries for popular publications.

Artist says: Astronomical illustrators play much the same role as medical illustrators, in that they attempt to realistically portray an aspect of nature that is beyond ordinary experience, in this case a realm that is too far or too hostile to explore directly. The astronomical artist can take us to the dawn of creation to witness the cataclysmic collision that formed our Moon, or transport us billions of years into the future to see the ultimate fate of Earth.

Below is a selection of some of his countless space artworks. More can be found on his website Cosmographica. Note: All artwork and images copyright © Don Dixon. Please do not use images without the permission of the artist.