HYBRID – General Meeting – March 2024

Presentation:  From Planet to Pictures

We all have seen images of each planet in our solar system until they’re ingrained in our culture’s collective psyche, but how did we get those images? In “From Planet to Pictures,” Max Lipitz will take the audience on a grand tour of the solar system, and do far more than just repeat the usual statistics about the planets, moons, asteroids, and whatever Pluto is now. Max’s presentation will be about the robotic emissaries we sent to learn about these celestial objects, the journey they undertook and the discoveries they made.

Biography: Maxmilian (Max) Lipitz could best be described as a strange amalgamation of NASA obsession, photographic prowess, and insatiable curiosity. He’s a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technologies Imaging Science Program; a highly interdisciplinary field that combines physics, math, computer science, and engineering. And whether he’s developing image processing algorithms to turn people into Simpsons characters or restoring a 31-year-old digital camera just because, Max puts his whole heart into everything he does. In the past he’s worked with Dr. Robert Kremens to develop next-generation probes (“Kremboxes”) to monitor wildfires in the thermal and visible spectrum, providing valuable data that could save thousands of lives. Currently Max works as a scientist at Tucson-based GEOST.