seemingly unlimited progress at the time of the first head of that program, James Dean, although even then pictorial realism seemed a subset rather than a dominating visual influence. The works which document space flight situations such as those referenced above are similar in concept to government efforts during World War II to send artists to battle zones to document things as they saw it, much of which appeared in contemporary Life magazines. Another close parallel to astronomical art is dinosaur art. Both art schools explore unreachable realms with the intent to bring a sense of reality to them. The 'Grand Masters' of that field such as Charles R. Knight and Zdeněk Burian worked with experts in the field, using the best available information to create a realistic vision of something we can never behold with our own eyes. Ideally, as with Astronomical art, such a work tries to show what is known about the subject, with some educated guesswork to fill in the unknown and unknowable. We see more recent works by a healthy number of great dinosaur artists which reflect the growth in knowledge in body stances and likely feathers, etc. just as we see alien landscapes now painted which reveal the gathered knowledge instead of the craggy fantasies and the 'blue sky' Mars of yesteryear. Most of today's widely published space and astronomical artists have belonged to the International Association of Astronomical Artists since 1983. Historic influences {| border="1" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" |- valign="top" | 1301 || Giotto di Bondone painting The Adoration of the Magi includes a comet in the sky, believed to indicate the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1301 |- valign="top" | 1416 || Limbourg brothers in the Duc Du Berry manuscript includes what may be the earliest attempt at a realistic portrayal of the night sky, complete with zipping meteors. |- valign="top" | 1515 || Albrecht Dürer publishes the first known perspective drawing of Earth as a globe. |- valign="top" | 1529 || Albrecht Altdorfer painting Battle of Issus is probably the earliest painting to show the curvature of the Earth from a great height. |- valign="top" |1711 || Donato Creti paints a series of astronomers of the time under views of the planets through a telescope, to interest the Vatican in establishing an astronomical observatory. |- valign="top" |1858 || Comet Donati was recorded in numerous paintings of the time |- valign="top" |1874 ||