Posted on by Laurence Tognetti

Watch an Actual Exoplanet Orbit its Star for 17 Years

Artist rendition of exoplanet, Beta Pictoris b, whose partial orbit was recently featured in a time-lapsed video. (Credit: ESO L. Calçada/N. Risinger)

Searching for exoplanets is incredibly difficult given their literal astronomical distances from Earth, which is why a myriad of methods have been created to find them. These include transit, redial velocity, astrometry, gravitational microlensing, and direct imaging. It is this last method that was used to recently create a time-lapse video that compresses a mind-blowing 17 years of the partial orbit of exoplanet, Beta Pictoris b, into 10 seconds. The data to create the video was collected between 2003 and 2020, it encompasses approximately 75 percent of the total orbit, and marks the longest time-lapse video of an exoplanet ever produced.

Continue reading “Watch an Actual Exoplanet Orbit its Star for 17 Years”
Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

How the ISS Astronauts Film Time-lapse Photography

The past few months, we’ve been posting all the incredible time-lapse video that the astronauts on the space station have been taking. Just how can they shoot such amazing footage? In Episode 2 of the new NASA video series, “Inside the International Space Station,” Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum speaks from space with astronaut Mike Massimino about Fossum’s amazing time lapse photography.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Ron Garan’s Incredible ISS Timelapse: Coming Back Home

Ron Garan preparing to take some time-lapse photography from the International Space Station Cupola, traveling over coastal Australia, ‘giving new meaning to the Peter Garbriel song, ‘Downside Up,’ which accompanies the video,’ Ron Garan said. Image taken by fellow astronaut Mike Fossum.

Time Lapse From Space – Literally. The Journey Home. from Fragile Oasis on Vimeo.

We’ve seen lots of timelapse videos lately from the International Space Station, as the astronauts have just recently started shooting long sequences of images enabling the creation of these stunning videos made from still photos. This video was put together by one of the photographers himself — Ron Garan — who returned home on September 16, 2011 after spending about six months in space. Today on his blog, Fragile Oasis, Garan explained how the genesis of time-lapse photography on the ISS came from a suggestion from Katrina Willoughby, a photography instructor for the astronauts.

“I hadn’t tried time-lapse yet because I overestimated how hard it would be to capture great images, and the time-lapse photography I had seen to date didn’t seem as impressive as the still imagery we had been taking with some of the new equipment onboard,” Garan said.

But he set up a Nikon D3S camera in the Cupola on the space station (see an awesome picture of him, below, working in the Cupola), took some practice shots, and worked on getting the right settings, then set up the camera to take about 500 pictures at 3-second intervals.

“When I saw the results, I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep!” Garan said, adding that these videos really do give a great representation of what the view is like from space.


[/caption]

Following Garan’s lead, the other astronauts have since joined in taking time-lapse imager, and astronaut Mike Fossum has “since elevated time-lapse photography from space to an art form,” Garan said.

You can see a collection of ISS time-lapse videos here, and read Garan’s post on Fragile Oasis for more information on the cameras, settings, etc for their time-lapse photography.

Also, check out the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth to see the latest images and videos from space.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Stunning Timelapse Video of Earth and Sky

The Bad Astronomer posted a time-lapse video today which is wonderful, and you should go watch it, but I’m going to counter with another incredible time-lapse that might be even better (in my opinion! — and as suggested by Daniel Fischer on Twitter). This one was created by photographer Dustin Farrell, and shows a year’s compilation of his time lapse work. “All shot on the Canon 5D2 and processed in Adobe After Effects,” Farrell writes on his Vimeo page. “The majority of the shots are in my beautiful home state of Arizona. Goblin Valley State Park and Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah also make an appearance,” — as do NASA’s new electric rovers. Check out Farrell’s company’s website, CrewWest, Inc.

Just amazing.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Time Lapse Video of Earth from Space

This time lapse footage was taken by astronaut Don Pettit — of Saturday Morning Science and the Zero-G coffee cup fame — during his time on the International Space Station. It shows Earth from day to night and back to day again. Pettit was on the ISS from November 23, 2002 to May 3, 2003, so he was in space when the Columbia accident happened. Pettit is one of the most interesting and quirkier astronauts and I hope he gets to return to the ISS. is scheduled to return to the ISS in 2011 (thanks to Ben H. for clarifying — see comments). This video provides some great views of Earth, especially at night, that can’t be captured with a regular video shot. Stunning.

via @wiredscience on Twitter

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Incredible! Watch Time-Lapse of EVA-1/Tranquility Node Berthing

This is so cool! Normally spacewalks, or EVAs take 6-7 hours. But here you can watch the first EVA of the STS-130 mission in just one minute and 45 seconds! And that even includes watching the astronauts put on their spacesuits. Ron Smith has created a time-lapse video of EVA-1, so you can watch all the action of the new Tranquility Node being berthed to the ISS. This is especially great since the EVA took place during the night-time hours here in the US, when most of us were supposed to be sleeping. Some of us tried to stay awake to watch the spacewalk, and now I can quickly see what I missed when I nodded off…

Hat tip to @avgjanecrafter on Twitter!