Time lapse photographer Randy Halverson of Dakotalapse has done it again: an astonishing and beautiful video called "Temporal Distortion".
[embed width="610"]http://vimeo.com/36684976[/embed]
Lovely, isn't it? And the music was specially commissioned to Bear McCreary, who did the music for "Battlestar Galactica" and "The Sarah Conner Chronicles". I love the meteor at 55 or so seconds into the video that leaves what's called a persistent train, or a trail that lasts for several minutes. In the time lapse you can see the vapor trail twist and turn as high-altitude winds push on it. I wrote about this before
when Randy posted a still picture that eventually wound up in this video, and he graciously acknowledges me on his Vimeo page
for the video.
I also noticed a flashing object at 3:38, going right past a bright star (which is Altair, by the way). See it? I think it might be a tumbling satellite, which changes brightness as it orbits end-over-end. It moves pretty slowly, so it must be in a high orbit. Just before that, at 3:25, he has a great view of the constellation Cygnus, the Swan, and you can just see the pink glow of the famous North American Nebula
. This is a great video, and there's more too: Randy's made an extended cut which is 23 minutes long! You can buy it on his website
. After all, my one complaint about these time lapse videos is they're never long enough.
Related posts: - A meteor’s lingering tale - Another jaw-dropping time lapse video: Tempest - Gorgeous Milky Way time lapse - The fiery descent of Atlantis… seen from space! - Meteor propter hoc
