gr_raytracer image gallery
Schwarzschild Black Hole
Checkerboard Accretion Disk
Schwarzschild black hole with a checkerboard accretion disk showing gravitational lensing effects
Volumetric Rendering
Schwarzschild black hole visualization with volumetric disc (background image: NGC 6355)
Close vantages
First-person views from a static observer close to the hole (recipes:
images/create-vantage-images.sh; checker sky, 3500 K blackbody disc so
gravitational blueshift keeps the gas in warm hues). The Kerr
gallery has the same four placements around a
spinning hole for comparison.
Porthole (r = 1.05 r_s, looking straight out): this close to the horizon the entire sky, disc included, is compressed into a shrinking circle of light; everything around it is the black hole filling the view.
Photon-sphere edge (r = 1.25 r_s, looking sideways): near the photon sphere at 1.5 r_s, sideways-directed light circles the hole; the bright wall is made of ever-tighter wound images of the disc and sky.
Grazing view from just above the photon sphere (r = 1.55 r_s): the band stacks multiple complete windings of the sky, each successive image thinner than the last.
Rearview (r = 2 r_s, looking away and slightly up): the outward sky, gravitationally magnified, with the accretion disc cutting through as a bright band.