twilight zone, the edge of light
September 16, 2008 1:28 PM   Subscribe

The "terminator" is the dividing line between day and night as seen from on high. This shadow line is diffuse and shows the gradual transition to darkness we experience as twilight. posted by nickyskye (44 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
Now I know vhy humans cry.
posted by Artw at 1:36 PM on September 16, 2008 [2 favorites]


Is it from the future?
posted by chillmost at 1:37 PM on September 16, 2008


I've always dreamed that one day the Terminator would be mixed with the Twilight Zone. This is not what I imagined.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:42 PM on September 16, 2008 [1 favorite]


Terminator sez: "I will be back"
posted by sexyrobot at 1:42 PM on September 16, 2008


Oops, meant to also include this nice definition of the terminator twilight zone.
posted by nickyskye at 1:45 PM on September 16, 2008


I think of the "terminator" as containing all the colors of spectrum within. And as it it spreads into the daytime light it displays all the colors with the sky. Like a prism.
posted by Liquidwolf at 1:51 PM on September 16, 2008


Come with me if you want to live avoid rickets.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:52 PM on September 16, 2008


I'm no scientist, but I feel comfortable speaking above my degree when I say that this shit is awesome as fuck
posted by Damn That Television at 1:54 PM on September 16, 2008 [2 favorites]


neat!
posted by anoirmarie at 2:03 PM on September 16, 2008


Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead. Actually it won't even stop then. It will just keep going around and around the planet forever, no matter what you do. Are you listening to me?
posted by Naberius at 2:21 PM on September 16, 2008 [7 favorites]


This reminds me of the opening to Carlos Reygadas' Stellet Licht - one of the most stunning sequences I have seen on film. But please watch it on a big screen, it loses much of its power on youtube...
posted by lovejones at 2:21 PM on September 16, 2008 [2 favorites]


Previously on AskMe.
(this is awesome, btw)
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 2:26 PM on September 16, 2008 [1 favorite]


It really isn't always darkest before the dawn?
posted by Dave Faris at 2:30 PM on September 16, 2008


the terminator twilight zone.

Actually it I think it was an episode of The Outer Limits
posted by Artw at 2:31 PM on September 16, 2008 [1 favorite]


Oh damn you Naberius, I was gonna do that!
posted by turgid dahlia at 2:40 PM on September 16, 2008


If the Terminator has taught us anything, it's to know when to shoot.
posted by quin at 3:04 PM on September 16, 2008


And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart
High up in the sky the little stars climb
Always reminding me that we're apart
You wander down the lane and far away
Leaving me a song that will not die
Love is now the stardust
Of yesterday
The music
Of the years
Gone by
posted by vronsky at 3:04 PM on September 16, 2008 [1 favorite]


Magic hour!
posted by not_on_display at 3:10 PM on September 16, 2008


(or, off preview, what quin said, but not as funny.)
posted by not_on_display at 3:11 PM on September 16, 2008


You, Andrew Marvell
by Archibald MacLeish

And here face down beneath the sun
Here upon Earth's noonward height
To feel the always coming on
The always rising of the night:

To feel creep up the curving East
The earthy chill of dusk and slow
upon those underlands the vast
And ever climbing shadow grow

And strange at Ecbatan the trees
Take leaf by leaf the evening strange
The flooding dark about their knees
The mountains over Persia change

And now at Kermanshah the gate
Dark empty and the withered grass
And through the twilight now the late
Few travellers in the Westward pass

And Baghdad darken and the bridge
Across the silent river gone
And through Arabia the edge
of evening widen and steal on

And deepen in Palmyra's street
The wheel-rut in the ruined stone
And Lebanon fade out and Crete
High through the clouds and overblown

And over Sicily the air
Still flashing with the landward gulls
And loom and slowly disappear
The sails above the shadowy hulls

And Spain go under and the shore
Of Africa the gilded sand
And evening vanish and no more
The low pale light across that land

Nor now the long light on the sea:

And here face downward in the sun
To feel how swift how secretly
The shadow of the night comes on...
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:17 PM on September 16, 2008 [5 favorites]


Great post!

Who is this Daddy Hinson badass, and what is that plane that he flys?
posted by alexwoods at 3:24 PM on September 16, 2008


I'm sorry to have to do this. That shot of the Terminator is a composite.
posted by one_bean at 3:24 PM on September 16, 2008


...and I am an idiot for not noticing it says that on the same page. Carry on.
posted by one_bean at 3:25 PM on September 16, 2008


I'm looking forward to the first HDR shots from space. That will put a rest to all this terminator nonsense.
posted by blue_beetle at 3:30 PM on September 16, 2008 [1 favorite]


Out of curiousity, was this post at all inspired by the answers to last week's Ken Jennings trivia questions?
posted by inigo2 at 3:43 PM on September 16, 2008 [2 favorites]


lovejones, That's one of the most beautiful few minutes of film I've ever experienced. Thank you for that lovely gift.

Cat Pie Hurts, years ago, 1976, I was in a small jet and the pilot gestured to look at the terminator line where night and day meet. He said that line can only be seen up high, like 20,000+ feet. So it's not the light and dark thing the AskMe poster wanted to know. In her case I think I'd have suggested a term like luminance contrast.

I couldn't remember the phrase for that line, the terminator, for over 30 years and was so excited when I came across it today I wanted to share it here. Wish I'd seen that AskMe post 2 years ago. Thanks.

LobsterMitten, ooooh, that poem! ahh.

inigo2, never heard of Ken Jennings. So, no.
posted by nickyskye at 3:50 PM on September 16, 2008


Who is this Daddy Hinson badass, and what is that plane that he flys?

I'm not sure, but it looks a bit like a U-2 to me - long, high aspect-ratio wing and "superpod" near the root.
posted by Nice Guy Mike at 4:21 PM on September 16, 2008


...and now that I've followed your link, alexwoods, I can confirm it is indeed a U-2.
posted by Nice Guy Mike at 4:22 PM on September 16, 2008


inigo2: I was actually kind of miffed that this post came just over a day too late to answer the trivia question. That's bad timing!
posted by Pronoiac at 4:32 PM on September 16, 2008


That shot of the Terminator is a composite.

I was also going to point out the same thing, even though its authenticity as a real photo doesn't diminish its ability to depict the Terminator -- except I saw that the caption under the picture clearly discloses that it's fake.
posted by Dave Faris at 4:37 PM on September 16, 2008


answer the trivia question

huh. Now curious. What is this connected with?
posted by nickyskye at 4:38 PM on September 16, 2008


ItĀ“s from Ken JenningsĀ“ Tuesday Trivia:

2. Two science fiction films, from 1983 and 1984, share their titles with two different names for the dividing line between day and night on the surface of a planet. What are they?
posted by concrete at 4:56 PM on September 16, 2008


Return of the Jedi?
posted by Artw at 5:03 PM on September 16, 2008


ah. Thanks concrete.
posted by nickyskye at 5:28 PM on September 16, 2008


Naberius: "Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead. Actually it won't even stop then. It will just keep going around and around the planet forever, no matter what you do. Are you listening to me?"

Rotation Of Earth Plunges Entire North American Continent Into Darkness
posted by Rhaomi at 6:12 PM on September 16, 2008 [1 favorite]


LobsterMitten, looked up the poem you quoted. wow. So apt.

Archibald MacLeish's poem "You, Andrew Marvell", alludes to the passage of time and to the growth and decline of empires. In his poem, the speaker, lying on the ground at sunset, feels "the rising of the night". He visualizes sunset, moving from east to west geographically, overtaking the great civilizations of the past, and feels "how swift how secretly/The shadow of the night comes on."
posted by nickyskye at 6:13 PM on September 16, 2008


It's a lovely poetic term but sort of odd, since night and day cycle round and round, and nothing really terminates there.

Another poetic and odd term is the termination shock, the shock wave formed where the solar wind is slowed down to subsonic speeds by the interstellar medium. The solar wind doesn't terminate there, it just slows down. At the edge of the solar system, I think the termination shock needs a poem too.

Anyway, lovely pictures. Thanks, nickyskye.
posted by Quietgal at 7:35 PM on September 16, 2008 [1 favorite]


> Who is this Daddy Hinson badass, and what is that plane that he flys?

Lockheed U2 (yup, we still fly them). Probably a variant (guessing U-2S, tactical recon model, with single seater) with extra surveillance and imaging equipment in it (or extra fuel or both). One image has the line "hindu kush" so I am guessing he is running flights (or was) over the afghanistan/pakistan border.

Who needs FISA when you got google?
posted by mrzarquon at 11:23 PM on September 16, 2008


Actually another image points to kuwait, and with the range on those things, he could be flying out of anywhere.
posted by mrzarquon at 11:28 PM on September 16, 2008


Actually it won't even stop then. It will just keep going around and around the planet forever

well one day the earth will be tide-locked to the sun and then it'll stop... unfortunately I don't expect to still be around to gloat over this small victory...
posted by russm at 11:53 PM on September 16, 2008


Lovejones,


That video was amazing. That's one of the most beautiful features of Kansas, a wide horizon to watch the sky. Storms and sunrises are great here, especially in the flint hills.
posted by metricfan at 1:59 AM on September 17, 2008


Cold hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colours from our sight
Red is grey and yellow, white
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion
posted by borborygmi at 2:01 AM on September 17, 2008 [1 favorite]


Nocturne
W.H. Auden

Now through night's caressing grip
Earth and all her oceans slip,
Capes of China slide away
From her fingers into day
And th'Americas incline
Coasts towards her shadow line.

Now the ragged vagrants creep
Into crooked holes to sleep
Just and unjust, worst and best,
Change their places as they rest
Awkward lovers like in fields
Where disdainful beauty yields

While the splendid and the proud
Naked stand before the crowd
And the losing gambler gains
And the beggar entertains
May sleep's healing power extend
Through these hours to our friend.

Unpursued by hostile force,
Traction engine, bull or horse
Or revolting succubus;
Calmly till the morning break
Let him lie, then gently wake.




The setting by Britten is beautiful but I can't find a link.
posted by sixswitch at 3:29 AM on September 17, 2008 [1 favorite]


borborygmi , Just looked up your quotation and realized it's from one of my favorite albums, Moody Blues, Days of Future Passed. Thanks.
posted by nickyskye at 5:57 AM on September 18, 2008


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