Fixed stars, rotating Earth
April 25, 2017 12:25 PM   Subscribe

Just a short video with the stars fixed while the Earth rotates (SLYT).
posted by Harald74 (17 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is cool.

It also makes me vaguely sick to my stomach.
posted by INFJ at 12:53 PM on April 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Laser guide stars from observatories, I think, but did I see Zodiacal light?
posted by the Real Dan at 12:54 PM on April 25, 2017


Seconded. Even though I know that's what is happening, seeing the video made me want to barf. It also made me want to fall "up." I was not made to be an astronaut.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:54 PM on April 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


It also makes me vaguely sick to my stomach.

Yeah, it's all swimmy! I think probably from atmospheric distortion.
posted by aubilenon at 1:12 PM on April 25, 2017


It makes me want to grab something to hold on. It's interesting that the same movement in a time lapse in the sky doesn't really seem like a rotating earth.

Ha, I just recently posted this link in the interesting Metatalktail Hour: Other Science Facts thread.

It's edited from the inspiring VLT (Very Large Telescope) HD Timelapse Footage which previously had it's own thread in 2011. The VLT telescopes are in the high desert in Chile.

(At 0:40, what looks like sunlight when the stars appear is actually moonlight, which later sets over the horizon.)
posted by jjj606 at 1:14 PM on April 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Agreed that this is super-cool but I'd love to see the results with a fish-eye or 360° lens so that you could keep the 16x9 frame static but still have the earth rotating. Having the frame stay static and the image completely filling it would really improve the effect.
posted by Defective_Monk at 1:31 PM on April 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


It would be quite nice to see footage from a wide angle camera on a equatorial mount aimed at Polaris.

Something like this... without the border should result.
posted by MikeWarot at 1:38 PM on April 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


Wow, I don't usually get nauseated by this kind of thing, but just watching the preview in a little corner of the monitor window made my stomach start to feel queasy.
posted by straight at 1:40 PM on April 25, 2017


I love this. We are on a spaceship.
posted by pracowity at 2:11 PM on April 25, 2017 [6 favorites]


Laser guide stars from observatories, I think, but did I see Zodiacal light?

I'm pretty sure that was Nostalgia for Infinity.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:13 PM on April 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


Nice. The four telescopes that make up the VLT - and don't miss the the heart of our own galaxy, as well as the pair of fuzzy patches that are our nearest galactic neighbors, the Magellanic Clouds. The Southern hemisphere skies have too much of the cool stuff.
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:50 PM on April 25, 2017


Somewhere a Doctor Strange sequel screenwriter just hit the bookmark button so hard it broke their mouse
posted by jason_steakums at 4:06 PM on April 25, 2017


I love how disorienting this is, and I'm already pretty dizzy from a mild cocktail of antibiotics and 2nd rate pain killers. I could watch this for hours in 3D with VR googles and strapped into a 3-axis simulator. That'd be glorious.

What was really messing with my head is how the atmospheric distortion and lensing becomes so much more apparent with the framing following the sky instead of the horizon.

This partially explains the sensation of seeing the sky, ah, breathing and distorting near the horizon during longer duration star watching sessions. (I've been doing some long duration astrolandscape photography lately.)
posted by loquacious at 5:42 PM on April 25, 2017


What a beautiful change of perspective! The relative motion of the horizon and stars didn't look like pure rotation to me in many of the segments - it felt like there was another component of the motion. It must be how and where the camera is aimed relative to the earth's axis, but intuitively it felt very weird.
posted by dbx at 6:55 PM on April 25, 2017


I'm pretty sure that was Nostalgia for Infinity

Alastair Reynolds is writing some text for the next album, or so I hear...
posted by Zerowensboring at 7:16 PM on April 25, 2017


"Nostalgia for Infinity" The name for my condition, at last.
posted by Oyéah at 9:35 AM on April 26, 2017


Video is now private
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 7:24 PM on April 28, 2017


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