BABloggee Greg Smith told me about this video, which is actually quite beautiful to watch. Nice choice of music, too.
Timescapes Timelapse: Learning to Fly from Tom @ Timescapes on Vimeo
I used to take a lot of astrophotos when I was younger, and when I took long exposures and there was scattered light — from the Moon, say, or a street light — the sky would be blue, you could see trees, yet there would still be visible stars in the sky. It was eerie, and this video catches that well. See if you can spot Orion and the Andromeda galaxy in the video!
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Just a BABloggee with no clever tip of the lenscap or something like that? And yes, it’s a great composition!
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Awesome. Especially when set to one of my all-time favorite songs.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I wonder how the sequences with moving landscape were made…
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Mchl: http://www.timescapes.org/
The camera is mounted on a track.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:34 pm
It’s almost as if the song was written for the video.
I saw Orion a few times and I think I caught Andromeda in there.
Wicked video!
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Very, very cool.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Fantastic! Thank YOU!
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Hmm… nobody mentioned seeing Vega in the constellation Lyra, nor the Pleiades?
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
“I wonder how the sequences with moving landscape were made…” Motion control rigs, dollies, etc. The splashpage of the Timescapes website has a couple photos of rigs; the discussion forum there has a section devoted to it, so I’m sure you can delve into the horrifying details as much as you like.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:06 pm
The right thing for bedtime…
Oh, and bookmarked for sure!
/G’nite from UTC-1 *yawn*
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Ron Fricke pioneered this technique (iirc) in his film “Baraka”.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Wow! -serious!
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Nice video, nice music!
Andromeda appears twice at 01:19 and 03:06
Orion appears several times, beggining at 1:23
Those flying satelites looked like UFOs hehe…
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Oh! There is a third appearance of Andromeda in teh very beggining! at 00:11!
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Nice mash-up. The sad state of our copyright laws is such that it wouldn’t be legal to freely produce and redistribute it with the song for about another 100 years.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:22 pm
For those of you who didn’t notice, you can watch the video in HD if you go to vimeo and click HD.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:40 pm
I have just seen the greatest Internet video EVER!!! Thank you, Phil, for sharing it with us.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:48 pm
DavidHW Says:
Ron Fricke pioneered this technique (iirc) in his film “Baraka”.
Actually there are plenty of precendents. Fricke was an assistant to Godfrey Reggio on the ‘qatsi films; & even Reggio was standing on the shoulders of largely unknown cinematic giants. Dziga Vertov & Bert Haanstra didn’t need no new-fangled motion control to achieve these effects back in the 20 & 30s
Nice piece, though
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Takes me back to my planetarium days.
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:43 pm
*sings*
Can’t keep my eyes from the circling skies…
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:41 pm
As both an artist and a fan of real science, I like this sort of thing much better than what typically ends up in most music videos. Impressionistic, informative and unpretentious
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:31 am
Stunning! That is such a gorgeous video.
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:30 am
I really love long exposures. It’s easy to forget how different the world looks when you’re using non-human eyes. This, for example, looks to all the world like a lightly blurry daylight shot.
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:50 am
What’s the song? I’m not familiar with it.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:02 am
Learning to Fly by Pink Floyd.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:03 am
Terry, Terry, Terry…
[sigh]
Pink Floyd. From “Delicate Sound of Thunder” if I’m guessing right.
I’m going to have to try to make some of these some night soon!
I wonder if the NRQZ/NRAO restrictions had an effect here, I’ll have to ask Dave Finley in Socorro sometime… Digital cameras (both video & still) are problematic near radio telescopes.
:^(
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:30 am
Not “Delicate Sound of Thunder” after all, that’s just where my iPod has it from…
Which is the original album? I should get it…
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:37 am
It makes me wonder… What if an alien existed somewhere, whose timescale were shifted like this, (much the same way as a turtle) and had hyper sensative eyes, due to a shift in the available spectrum? What if they perceived the world, and the cosmos like this all the time? They would almost certainly start off with a heightened sense of their place in the grand scheme of things…
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:10 am
“Nice mash-up. The sad state of our copyright laws is such that it wouldn’t be legal to freely produce and redistribute it with the song for about another 100 years.”
I’m curious. Do you feel the same way if the situation was reversed? What if Pink Floyd grabbed Tom’s timelapse videos and freely distributed them in music videos without compensating him?
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:14 am
[...] Vía Bad Astronomy [...]
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:25 am
@ Richard Drumm,
According to Wikipedia (click on my name), “Learning to Fly” is the second song from the original Pink Floyd album A Momentary Lapse of Reason.
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:35 am
Timothy from Boulder:
They would probably make the excuse: Err… it was “A Momentary Lapse of Reason”, man.
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:48 am
@Richard Drumm and IVAN3MAN
A Momentary Lapse of Reason is a great album, as is The Division Bell. Oh, and Wish You Were Here. And I can’t forget…ah, so many good ones.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:27 am
This guy should do a remake of “Koyaanisqatsi”.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:50 am
I assume it would be (is?) Timescapes Tom ripping off Pink Floyd if the music was not protected by copyright and performance right. And, what the heck, it’s only music.
I don’t understand what’s with the stars and specifically the Andromeda galaxy. It’s barely a naked eye object, surely you won’t pick it up by accident even in an HD camera?
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:12 am
Did you see the UFO’s orbiting the ball lightning in the desert? We have proof at last!
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Orion and M31 are easy … try to spot the constellation of Dolphin!
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
What I noticed was Venus and Mercury zipping around the sun. Way too cool!