Oh my, another lovely night sky (and landscape!) time lapse video; this time from Alessandro Della Bella, and called Helvetias Dream: <\/p>\n
[Make sure you set it to hi-def and make it full screen.] <\/p>\n
I love the opening shot! Unless it was just digitally zoomed, it must have taken some planning; you have to know just where the Moon is going to rise to catch it that accurately. <\/p>\n
A couple of other things to watch for, too: <\/p>\n
At about 45 seconds in, a bright meteor leaves a long persistent train, a glowing trail that gets blown away by the thin but rapid winds 100 kilometers above the Earths surface. I actually gasped when I saw that! <\/p>\n
At 1:30 you see the stars of Orion setting behind the Matterhorn, zoomed in. The big bright pink blob is the famed Orion Nebula, but just above it is the star Alnitak with a bit of nebulosity around it; the bright patch is the Flame nebula, and barely visible is the much fainter but iconic Horsehead Nebula. <\/p>\n
I also love how the clouds more like fog flow through the valley. The study of how things flow is called hydrodynamics, and physicists use the word \"fluid\" to describe the stuff thats flowing. In common vernacular that means liquid (\"Have you been drinking enough fluids?\") but in science air is a fluid. So is the thin gas in a nebula, since it can carry sound waves and be shaped by supersonic flow. <\/p>\n
Whenever a doctor asks me if Ive been taking my fluids, I always want to respond, \"WHAT? And ionize my cardiovascular system?!\" <\/p>\n
Ive never had the guts. <\/p>\n
Anyway, one more thing: the Moon setting at the end is actually not full! The long exposure times makes it look that way, but when it nears the horizon you can see its really a thin crescent, but the dark part of the Moon is being illuminated by Earthshine: light from the Earth itself softly illuminating the nighttime moonscape, which is then reflected back to us. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Continued here:<\/p>\n
Time lapse: Helvetia\u2019s Dream | Bad Astronomy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oh my, another lovely night sky (and landscape!) time lapse video; this time from Alessandro Della Bella, and called Helvetias Dream: [Make sure you set it to hi-def and make it full screen.] I love the opening shot! Unless it was just digitally zoomed, it must have taken some planning; you have to know just where the Moon is going to rise to catch it that accurately. A couple of other things to watch for, too: At about 45 seconds in, a bright meteor leaves a long persistent train, a glowing trail that gets blown away by the thin but rapid winds 100 kilometers above the Earths surface. I actually gasped when I saw that! At 1:30 you see the stars of Orion setting behind the Matterhorn, zoomed in Continue reading