A montage of the Perseids over my Sussex back garden on the early mornings of the 12 & 13 August, 2016.

The image was produced as follows. I had two cameras taking photos throughout the two nights (resulting in a few thousand photos!). I went through all the photos by eye to find the photos that had caught a meteor. I then used ImageMagick to rotate, stretch and generally distort the photos so that the stars were all lined up. I then used Gimp to cut-out each individual shooting star and layer them all on top of each other. There are 3 base images in here (top, middle & bottom) which form the backdrop onto which the shooting stars were placed.

I hope this explains why it took a year for me to motivate myself to process this!

Tags:   perseid shooting stars 2016 august sussex asronomy night sky meteors meteor

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All night time-lapse of myself and Thor Wold using UKIRT (the UK Infra-red Telescope) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. (see also the view from inside the control room, and the view inside the dome.)

At the beginning, you can see some of the dozens of tourists that come up the mountain every night to see the sunset.

During the night, the scene is illuminated by white moon light.

One image was taken every 35 seconds, and so the final movie is being played back about 500 times faster than normal.

The music is "Waltz into the Moonlight" by Tryad (download it from Jamendo).

Tags:   ukirt united kingdom infrared telescope time-lapse night sunset astronomy observing mauna kea hawaii highlight

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The Gemini observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

Note that it the Moon rising, not the Sun, and Gemini uses a laser to help focus the images, as does the Keck Observatory just around the corner - you can see both at various moments in the timelapse.

Music is Violette by Feather Drug (free to use via Jamendo's creative commons licence).

Note that, if I ever get the time, I will redo it: the images need rotating slightly to stop it looking like Gemini will roll down the hill at any moment; and I also need to fix a few of the nasty battery-changing jumps!

With 50 seconds left, you can see me chatting to one of the Gemini 'spotters' - the guys who look out for aircraft to ensure that it is safe to use the laser guide star.

Tags:   gemini observatory mauna kea hawaii time lapse movie highlight

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The lunar eclipse on 3rd March 2007, as seen from Leicester.

[ See also the time-lapse video version! ]


There are 22 images stacked together, each one separated by 11 mins 30sec.

Lots of stars can be seen in the photograph. Just like there are multiple images of the Moon, there are also multiple images of the stars.

At the bottom, we have Alphard (mag 2.0) going into the trees on the bottom right and Spica (mag 1.0) to the bottom left.

Above the Moon is Leo, and the stars Regulus (1.4), Denebola (2.1) and Algieba (2.2) are all visible.

The brightest 'star', half-way between the Moon and the top of the picture, is actually the planet Saturn.

I was actually at the Physics Ball drinking beer in Leicester town centre as my camera was automatically taking these photographs!

Tags:   astronomy lunar eclipse multiple images highlight

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How to take photographs of the starry night sky.

In this tutorial, I mention the StarTrails software, and Deep Sky Stacker.

Music is Fin du Voyage, by Lzn02 - listen to it here at Jamendo.

Tags:   stars astronomy astrophotography star trails time lapse movie software reduction deep sky stacker introduction photography course guide tutorial

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