Sky projection highlights Emirates Mars Mission

Two moons mysteriously appearing in the night sky sent UAE social media into a spin in February… exactly as planned. The magnificent illusion was made possible by the NuFormer sky projection concept including a transparent screen hoisted 50m into the sky in the Al Qudra desert. Creative Technology Middle East provided the technical solution which included six 31K projectors and a WATCHOUT system for content delivery/playback.

The sky projection was part of a government-backed public engagement campaign to highlight the Emirates Mars Mission "Hope Probe" which arrived at Mars on February 9. The probe will orbit the planet, studying the Martian atmosphere's dynamics. In the days leading up to Hope Probe's successful orbit, the innovative sky projection generated interest from both media and the general public. Mars' two moons hovered in the sky for several hours, creating a real buzz online.

The NuFormer sky projection concept includes a transparent screen which allows for all-round visibility for many on the ground. To ensure maximum effect, the EMM event took place in the desert, away from city lights, with the screen suspended between two cranes to ensure the projection could be seen far and wide. 

Content was designed by Creative Factory Global, Dubai. For client NuFormer, CT Middle East deployed six Panasonic PT-RZ31K projectors and WATCHOUT servers to project images of the two moons as seen from a Martian perspective.

"During the pre-production for this projection we realised we could encounter many variables, for example the wind speed and direction, that could affect the image geometry," explains Giorgio Devecchi, Project Manager at CT Middle East. "For this reasons we decided to use Dataton WATCHOUT in Live Update mode, in order to operate live on the geometry of the still images in case of a wind change or any other deformation. At the same time we still had the necessity to run the contents on a proper editing timeline as the images had been selected on site and thanks to the colour corrections and blending modes of WATCHOUT we could reach the best result for this project."