Captured on camera by astrophotographer Rafael Defavari from his location in São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, this video shows the Moon passing in front of Jupiter during an occultation event on December 25, 2012. Nice work!
The video plays at 5x actual speed.
Although Jupiter appeared to be “right next to” the Moon on Christmas night from our viewpoint here on Earth, in reality the two worlds were 388 million miles (625 million km) apart. The Moon blocked the view of the giant planet for a full hour and ten minutes.
‘Tis the season for lunar occultations, too… the last one occurred on November 28, and the next will be on January 22, 2013.
See more photos of the Dec. 25 event from viewers in Brazil here.
Popular Brazilian rock band Fresno recently released a new video for their new song, “Infinito”, and it really rises above the rest — literally!
It’s a story of four guys who take their childhood dream of launching a package up into space and, after years apart, come back together to make it a reality. Along the way we get to see some great views from a camera that the band members actually sent up to the edge of space via weather balloon — an accomplishment that came with its fair share of challenges.
Fresno lead member Lucas Silveira shared some behind-the-scenes info with Universe Today. “We wasted two cameras. One of them landed on a military base — exactly in the middle of a mine field — and the other simply disappeared… completely lost due to the lack of cellular signal on the landing spot.”
And even on a successful third try there were some technical difficulties.
“In our third attempt we used a different balloon, with more capacity, and it managed to fly for over 3.5 hours… but our camera only survived for around 2.5 hours. So we had to send a smaller balloon just to capture the ‘popping up’ moment, and added it to the ‘main balloon ride’ on post production.”
Still, the results — a dizzying view of Earth from 35 km up — are well worth it, and the story is an inspiring one… inspired, in fact, by NASA.
“I wrote this song after watching a video by NASA in which they zoom out from the Himalayas to the edge of the universe, showing the areas that still yet to be mapped. We are so infinitely small in the middle of all this greatness, and suddenly our problems get as tiny in our heads as our lucky existence here. It’s about searching for better days, creating a better future through proactivity and not letting others letting you down.”
When you soar that high it’s hard to feel let down.
Video courtesy of Fresno. Technical and launch assistance provided by ACRUX Aerospace Technologies. Band photo by Gustavo Vara.
