Before we explored outer space, we tried to paint it

This painting depicts the artist's vision of the asteroid or comet impact that created Arizona's famous Meteor Crater. The constellation of Orion, the hunter, hangs in the upper right.
Photograph by Painting by Charles Bittinger
Photograph by Painting by Charles Bittinger
A comet with a spectacular tail seems to glide past the Washington Monument in the nation's capital at dawn.
Photograph by Painting by Charles Bittinger
This painting shows Saturn and its iconic rings as seen from an asteroid 500,000 miles away. Bittinger's images "show a great imaginative leap that few artists were capable of in the early 1900s, that being creating a view from the surface of another world," says Jon Ramer, president of the International Association of Astronomical Artists.
Photograph by Painting by Charles Bittinger