Timelapse Archives

December 28, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Timelapse: The Stars of Northern Thailand

Photographer Teoh Hui Chieh from Malaysia created a beautiful timelapse of the night sky in Northern Thailand, and she was excited to see the North Star. “Polaris may be very common for people like you in the northern hemisphere,” she said via email, “but to us at the equator, it’s something that we don’t see everyday.”

The timelapse was taken over the course of 3 nights: 2 nights on a rooftop in Nan, and 1 night in Doiphukha National Park. It includes a combination of stars moving across sky along with views of the local terrain, along with gorgeous star trails.

“The last night in the National Park, the surrounding area was full of trees, but I was lucky to find a “hole” to capture Polaris,” Chieh said. The Andromeda Galaxy is also visible in the video starting at 1:30 and 2:00.

Rare views of Polaris from northern Thailand. Credit: Teoh Hui Chieh

See more of Chieh’s work at his blog, My Dark Sky.

December 3, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Stunning Star Trails Mania

You like star trails? We’ve got star trails! One of our favorite timelapse gurus, Gavin Heffernan from Sunchaser Pictures shot this stunning footage, and as he says, no special effects of any kind are needed to create star trails: just leave your shutter open and the natural rotation of Earth takes care of the rest!

But wait… there’s more!

Have you ever compared how different star trails look in the northern hemisphere compared to the southern hemisphere?

César Cantú has:

From the northern hemisphere, stars appear to move counterclockwise around the north pole of the sky; but if you stand at any point in the earth’s southern hemisphere, the stars appear to move clockwise around the south pole of the sky. César, who mans the Chilidog Observtory, took star trail footage from Mexico and Africa and combined the two to create an incredible “Hemispheric Countersense” video. See more about it here.

Combining star trails from Mexico and Africa. Credit: César Cantú

Scene from Sunchaser Star Trails. Credit: Gavin Heffernan. Footage shot in Big Bear Lake, Joshua Tree, and also Canada. Used Canon 5D & 7D, with a 24mm/1.4 lens and a 28mm/1.8.

SUNCHASER STAR TRAILS from Sunchaser Pictures on Vimeo.

November 26, 2012April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Timelapse From Inside a Telescope

This timelapse is different than most because it allows you to see the actions of the South African Large Telescope (SALT) from a unique point of view: the camera is mounted on the mirror structure, but also visible is the awesome field of view. Dr. Bruno Letarte compiled this video from 3 consecutive nights observing in July 2012 showing SALT in action. He also provides a tour of the inside of the telescope as well.

Additionally, Letarte provides detailed info of what is being observed, what scientist or team is doing the observing, and additional details of what is actually happening. If you want a more traditional timelapse of the night sky, see below for Letarte’s Volume I of this pair of videos. It shows a stunningly beautiful look at the southern sky, and points out several of the constellations and other objects that are visible.
Continue reading “Timelapse From Inside a Telescope”

November 19, 2012January 4, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Stunning New Timelapse: Storms and Stars at Joshua Tree

Here’s another gorgeous timelapse by Gavin Heffernan, who returned to Joshua Tree National Park in California for his third look at the incredible night sky. “It was an epic night,” Gavin told UT, “with storms at first, then some of the clearest skies I’ve ever seen.”

The sky is ablaze with activity; the rolling storm, the Milky Way in all its glory, plus meteors, satellites and aircraft passing overhead. Gavin and his Sunchaser Pictures team shot the footage with a Canon 7D and Canon 5D, with a 24mm/1.4 lens and a 28mm/1.8. Most intervals are 25 seconds, except the 1st, which is 30 second, Gavin said.

If you like this one, take a look at Gavin’s first and second visits to Joshua Tree, too.

JOSHUA TREE JOURNEY 3: STORM from Sunchaser Pictures on Vimeo.

October 16, 2012January 4, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Space Station Reaches Warp Speed?

The International Space Station appears to go to warp speed — a la Star Trek, Star Wars and almost every other space flick — in this new video created by Christoph Malin, who “stacked” image sequences that the ISS crew at International Space Station have been taking lately. These are the images that have been used to create the great timelapse videos, that provide a sense of what it is like to fly over the Earth on the space station. But this one is different, and as Malin says, “Stacks make interesting patterns visible, for example lightning corridors within clouds. One can also sometimes recognize satellite tracks and meteors – patterns that are not amongst the main star trails.”

Also visible is the Moon disappearing into the atmosphere and views from the ISS Cupola — gorgeous!
Continue reading “Space Station Reaches Warp Speed?”

September 9, 2012January 4, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Beautiful Timelapse: Purely Pacific Northwest

Here’s a wonderful new timelapse from photographer John Ecklund, a photographer from Portland, Oregon. He captures incredible views of the Milky Way over Crater Lake, Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens, the Painted Hills and more, even nabbing a few meteors and a pass of the International Space Station.

“I choose to shoot locations that appeal to the way I would like to interpret the story of time,” says Ecklund. “Here in the Pacific Northwest, there are endless opportunities to document the magnificence of the world around us. I have discovered that when time is the storyteller, a special kind of truth emerges.”
Continue reading “Beautiful Timelapse: Purely Pacific Northwest”

August 9, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

New Stunning ISS Time-lapse: Earth Illuminated

“If you could see the Earth illuminated when you were in a place as dark as night, it would look to you more spendid than the Moon.”

— Galileo Galilei.

400 years ago, Galileo could only imagine what the view of Earth would be like from space. Today, we have people on board the International Space Station who see that view every day. This new beautiful time-lapse shows aurora, lightning, our Milky Way Galaxy, city lights and other sights as seen from orbit.

Below is a great still image from this video, an amazing look through the ISS’s Cupola as Earth whizzes by:

Image caption: A view out the Cupola of the ISS. Credit: NASA

For more time-lapse videos and imagery, visit NASA’s Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth website.

July 24, 2012April 8, 2018 by Nancy Atkinson

Passing Through – A Beautiful Iceland Timelapse

This awesome video by Kristian Ulrich Larsen and Olafur Haraldsson melds the stark but beautiful landscape of Iceland, the words of Nicola Tesla, and cool computer graphics.

The text is from a speech given by Tesla in 1893, where he implies that the world should be conceived as a whole where everything is interconnected.

“Like a wave in the physical world, in the infinite ocean of the medium which pervades all, so in the world of organisms, in life, an impulse started proceeds onward, at times, may be, with the speed of light, at times, again, so slowly that for ages and ages it seems to stay, passing through processes of a complexity inconceivable to men, but in all its forms, in all its stages, its energy ever and ever integrally present.

A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in Nature. In no way can we get such an overwhelming idea of the grandeur of Nature than when we consider, that in accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, throughout the Infinite, the forces are in a perfect balance, and hence the energy of a single thought may determine the motion of a universe.”

—Nikola Tesla “The Electrical Review, 1893”

Passing Through from Olafur Haraldsson on Vimeo.

July 23, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

An Orbital Adagio: Nighttime Views from the ISS

People keep making these videos from ISS photography, and we keep loving them. Here’s the latest, assembled by photographer Knate Myers to a track by John Murphy (from the movie soundtrack for Sunshine) it’s a beautiful tour of nighttime passes of the Space Station over our planet. Stars, city lights, airglow, aurorae… it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, but everything worth seeing again. Watch it.

Video: Knate Myers. All images courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center. Via the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.

July 18, 2012January 6, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Shimmering Aurora Australis Timelapse

Our friends in the Southern Hemisphere have been enjoying some lovely auroral displays following the Sun’s recent activity. Here’s a new timelapse video of the night sky view on July 17, 2012, compiled by Maki Yanagimachi at Mt. John University Observatory in New Zealand. Enjoy the multi-colored aurora shimmering across the sky.