D.I.Y.
I MAGING

This thermograph of the universe as it appeared 13 billion years ago makes a great poster.

PRINT THE UNIVERSE
Make gigantic posters with a free web service.

By Phil Torrone

Photograph by NASA/WMAP Science Team

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe covering an entire wall. To use it, make sure (WMAP) observatory is a 1,850 pound, your image is under the 1-megabyte limit, and 15-foot-diameter satellite that orbits the Earth then upload it. I used Macromedia Fireworks to at a distance four times farther than the moon. compress my file enough to squeak it in under the It detects 13-billion-year-old temperature fluc- limit. After it uploads, you can crop and size the tuations from the early universe by recording image. For my wall I used U.S. Letter (8½"x11"), microwave radiation from 379,000 years after horizontal, 6 by 4 sheets (24 sheets) for a total the Big Bang. These fluctuations are the seeds poster size of 66"x34". from which galaxies eventually formed. In the final options, you can choose outlines

I’ve always wanted to print out some of the for the poster to make trimming easier, dot size, amazing WMAP images ( map.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and color (black and white, monochromatic, m_or.html) but I couldn’t find a way to print them multicolor). I chose the smallest dots, multicolor, large enough to do them justice. Then I discovered and didn’t need outlines. Once you finish, you’ll the Rasterbator ( homokaasu.org/rasterbator/). get a PDF to print out.

This web (and PC standalone) PDF-creating application can take just about any image and make it as large as you want, even completely

Phil Torrone ( pt@makezine.com) is associate editor of MAKE. Read his blog at makezine.com.