Posts Tagged ‘Equinox’

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Four seasons in… 13 seconds?!

September 24, 2011

by yaska77

At around 6 am local time each day the Sun, Earth, and any geosynchronous satellite form a right angle giving a straight down view of the terminator, the edge between dusk and dawn.

The angle of the terminator varies with the seasons, causing the different day lengths and the amount of warmth we feel from the sunshine.


The Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) on EUMETSAT’s Meteosat-9 captured these images of Earth from geosynchronous orbit. Although the Earth is fixed in the video it illustrates just how much it tilts throughout the year. The axis is tilted away from the Sun during winter solstice and toward it for summer solstice. At equinoxes the tilt is at a right angle to our star.

Autumn equinox occurred yesterday (23rd September 2011) at 09:04 UTC/GMT. Equinox means “equal night” in Latin, but while that is true of the Sun’s presence above the horizon it doesn’t account for twilight, when the Sun’s rays extend from beyond the horizon to illuminate the atmosphere.

I like this video a lot :)

NASA images and animation by Robert Simmon, using data from EUMETSAT. Caption by Mike Carlowicz.

Instrument: Meteosat

YouTube video uploaded by: camillasdo

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Eclipse season for the Solar Dynamics Observatory

September 14, 2011

by tte-77

Earth eclipse of the sun

Eclipse season begins from the vantage point in space of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory - Credit: NASA

The beginning of the eclipse season begins from the vantage point in space of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) – this recent image shows an Earth eclipse of the sun.

For three weeks near to 0700 UTC our orbit has the Earth pass between NASA’s SDO and the Sun. The eclipses can for around an hour in the middle of an eclipse season. The current eclipse season started on 11 September and lasts until 4 October.

Stationed in geosynchronous orbit about 22,000 miles above Earth the eclipse season for NASA’s SDO begins twice a year near each equinox, according to NASA.

Visit NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory here for more eclipse images in the coming weeks.

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Orion – Motion controlled time-lapse

June 24, 2011

by yaska77

Some of the first night sky photographs we ever took were of the constellation Orion. Such a recognisable group of stars and a favourite of many, it’s great to see it feature in another gorgeous time-lapse video. Watch, enjoy, feel inspired!

“Orion” – motion controlled night timelapse from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.

Orion
by Randy Halverson

About this video:

Shot in central South Dakota in late march-early april. It was the first time I’ve had the chance to use an Orion head mounted on the Dynamic Perception Stage Zero dolly.

The Orion (aka Merlin or Celestron) telescope head allows for an ultra slow pan and tilt of the camera while it moves slowly along the dolly. The MX2 controller from Dynamic Perception runs the dolly as well as the Orion head.

I also used a “milapse” mount on a few shots as well. The Orion works great with the MX2 and the dolly, I’ll be using it often.

At 2:09 you can see the Orion (telescope head) panning and tilting on the dolly.

Canon 60D and 550D
Tokina 11-16
Sigma 20mm F1.8
Tamron 17-50

Shot in RAW format, most shots were 25 seconds exposure F2.8 or 1.8 on the Sigma with 2 second interval between shots, for about 300 frames or so (several hours). There were a few 30 second exposures. ISO 1600

Music: Equinox by The American Dollar

The night sky. You’ve gotta love it! Have a look through the other time-lapse videos we’ve featured here

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