Clickers & Flickers Photography Network: Eugene F. Lally: "Digital Photography: From a Mars Mission Concept at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1961 to Cell Phone Cameras Today."

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY: FROM A MARS MISSION CONCEPT AT THE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY IN 1961 TO CELL PHONE CAMERAS TODAY
Presented By: EUGENE F. LALLY * Date: August 31, 2011 (Wednesday) * Time: 6:30 - 10 p.m. * Location: The Castaway, 1250 Harvard Road, Burbank, CA 91501 MAP * Reservations: (626) 794-7447 (Required at least 5 days prior to the event)
Eugene F. Lally was born in South Boston, and became interested in photography when his grandmother gave him a Kodak box camera. He enrolled in a photography class at the South Boston Boy’s Club at age 10. He developed interest in rockets and space exploration there at the same time during WWII watching Flash Gordon serial movies and following news of German rocket research. As a teenager he solved the red-eye problem caused by flash photography when color film became available and a photography magazine published his solution. He wrote space exploration papers working at a guided missile and rocket company while an undergraduate at Northeastern University in Boston. Lally “joined up with Krafft Ehricke, a former Peenemunde German rocket scientist, at General Dynamics Astronautics, San Diego and worked on Project Mercury the first manned mission and designed the astronaut’s safety escape rocket system. He next worked on the original “Man on the Moon” conceptual study for NASA renamed Apollo as the study progressed. Next he was brought in as an advanced conceptual designer at JPL for the initial spacecraft missions to planets, comets and asteroids and whatever else he wanted to explore. In a manned Mars spacecraft design he integrated a camera-based onboard optical guidance and navigation system for astronauts’ use during the long trajectory. Prior to this concept, Earth based tracking antennas computed the location of spacecraft and transmitted navigation information and trajectory correction commends up to the spacecraft.” Lally “designed the onboard camera system to photograph planets, asteroids and star backgrounds to capture relative position information, not on film but on a focal plane in a mosaic configuration of closely positioned light sensitive detectors. The output of the mosaic elements consisting of photoconductive detectors, later named “pixels”, were read out and assembled in the digital domain in image form. Along with being published in space exploration, Mr. Lally is published in fields of: astrobiology, economics, archaeology, photography, automotive racing, electronics and lubrication. His creative ideas have led him to develop and manufacture consumer and industrial products including: super-insulating clothing and blankets, sunscreen, light weight self-erecting camping tents, automotive electronic ignitions, anti-wear lubricants, home robots, science toys, and camera accessories.” Mr. Lally’s most recent paper (“Space Exploration… How Far Can We Reach and How Do We Get There?) is published in the May/June 2011 issue of SPACE TIMES, The Magazine of the American Astronautical Society.
RESERVATIONS AND PAYMENT REQUIRED IN ADVANCE C&F members: $55 at least (5) days in advance. $59 less than 5 days prior to the event. Non members: $59 at least (5) days in advance. $65 at the door, only if space is available.