DePaul University’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Space Science Center for Education and Outreach will introduce a Braille book of images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to a group of visually impaired students at 11:30 a.m., Nov. 21 at the DePaul Student Center, 2250 N. Sheffield Ave., Room 314A.

A similar event will be held concurrently in Baltimore at the National Federation of the Blind and is being sponsored by the Space Telescope Science Institute, located at Johns Hopkins University.

“Touch the Universe: A NASA Braille Book of Astronomy” was the brainchild of Bernhard Beck-Winchatz, an astronomer and faculty member at DePaul. According to Beck-Winchatz, he came up with the idea because he wanted visually impaired students to experience the same excitement and wonder that their seeing peers have when exposed to the images. Using a $10,000 HST grant earmarked for educational programs, he teamed up with Braille-book author Noreen Grice to produce the astronomy book for the blind.

Students participating in the program at DePaul to introduce “Touch the Universe” are from the Wisconsin Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Janesville, south of Madison. The middle- and high-school students will receive a mini-astronomy lesson from Beck-Winchatz and share their impressions of the images in the book. An instructor from the Hadley School for the Blind in Winnetka will also be on hand.

During the book unveiling, copies of “Touch the Universe” will be presented to representatives from DePaul’s Richardson Library and the Commissioner’s Office of the Chicago Public Library. Officials from the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities have also been invited to the event.

Beck-Winchatz got the idea to create a Braille book of Hubble images after seeing an earlier book on astronomy for the blind that Grice had created, entitled “Touch the Stars.” “I was fascinated by Grice’s first book,” recalled Beck-Winchatz, who holds a Ph. D. in astronomy from the University of Washington. “There are 10 million visually impaired people in the United States, who will now be able to experience the universe as revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope.”

“Touch the Universe” took more than a year to perfect. Beck-Winchatz and Grice solicited the assistance of Benning Wentworth III, a science teacher and astronomy enthusiast at the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind. Students at the school evaluated each image for clarity and provided important suggestions for needed changes.

Working in the kitchen of her home, Grice made prototypes of the Hubble images for the book by tracing them on plastic sheets, and using tools to create raised details. Grice not only tried to represent the outlines of stars, planets and galaxies, she used consistent patterns to denote color and matter. Raised lines, for example, represent blue. Rings are illustrated with dotted lines and wavy ones signify gas currents.

The 64-page book presents color images of planets, nebulae, stars and galaxies. Each image is embossed with lines, bumps and other textures. The raised patterns translate colors, shapes and other intricate details of the cosmic objects. Braille and large print descriptions accompany each of the book’s 14 photographs to allow visually impaired and seeing readers to enjoy the HST images.

“I think this book will help the blind community to understand the variety of objects in space,” explained Grice, who is also operations coordinator for the Charles Hayden Planetarium at the Boston Museum of Science. “Touch the Universe” brings amazing celestial objects, seen with the Hubble Space Telescope, to the fingertips of the visually impaired, where they can better understand the universe and their place within it.”

“Touch the Universe,” which was funded in part by NASA, is published by the Joseph Henry Press of the National Academies. The list price of the book is $35 per copy. Orders may be placed online at www.nap.edu/catalog/10307.html or by calling 1-800-624-6242.

DePaul has served as a space science education broker/facilitator for NASA since 1998. The university has supported NASA’s commitment to improving scientific literacy by matching scientists with educators to develop creative ways to improve science education in the United States.