Photos: With cyanotype, Brown student uses the sun to visualize the moon

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] - The sun was shining without a cloud in the sky, but the moon was the real star.

Brown senior Logan Tullai and a cadre of volunteers came together on Brown's Pembroke Field on a recent warm day to create sprawling silk prints of lunar craters using cyanotype - a photographic process invented in the 1800s that creates blue prints using ultraviolet rays.

"Something about making prints of the moon with the UV rays from the sun seemed so interesting," said Tullai, who received a student grant from the Brown Arts Institute to support the project. "With cyanotype, everything is blue, so there's also this fun 'blue moon' element to it."

Under a home-built shade structure, Tullai and a crew of roughly 30 students and volunteers unfurled a roll of the film - roughly 10 inches by 60 feet long - to lay flat on top of a long stretch of blue silk coated with a special formula of iron compounds. With factory-line precision and speed, they covered the film with plexiglass, securing it every few inches with a clip so the film wouldn't slip or budge during the exposure process.

On Tullai's count, everyone stood up, lifted the shade structure in unison, and set it under the sun's blazing UV rays to develop for about 10 minutes while the volunteers took respite under the shade of nearby ash trees.

After a timer went off and the clips were removed, Tullai and a handful of helpers thoroughly rinsed the silk until the blue-green water ran clear; then it was back to the assembly line as they hung the silk - now boasting crisp white and teal images of the moon - on a clothesline to dry.