iPhone app iPad app Android phone app Android tablet app More

Galaxy Video: Meteors, Aurora Borealis And Milky Way Shimmer In Time-Lapse Extravaganza (VIDEO)

Milky Way Video

First Posted: 02/25/2012 12:23 pm Updated: 02/25/2012 12:49 pm

Unless there's a meteor shower, we don't usually notice things moving up in space. Sped up and enhanced, however, the night sky becomes a bustling world—the clouds, the Milky Way and everything in between can be seen shifting and changing in ways the naked eye could never notice.

"Temporal Distortion," above, gives just such a view. Its Vimeo page describes it as "the result of thousands of 20-30 second exposures, edited together to produce the timelapse."

(Story continues below video.)

Temporal Distortion from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.

The video was created by photographer Randy Halverson. Composer Bear McCreary contributed an original soundtrack.

The camera moves slowly along a dolly (some behind the scenes shots can be found here), and it feels like the speed at which we were meant to see the night sky. Although land doesn't take up much of the frame, you can even see the grass grow if you watch carefully.

Other highlights include a meteor's spectacular trail at the 53-second mark and a couple of ghostly deer at 1:27.

Halverson notes, "Most of the video was shot near the White River in central South Dakota during September and October 2011, there are other shots from Arches National Park in Utah, and Canyon of the Ancients area of Colorado during June 2011. The aurora were shot in central South Dakota in September 2011 and near Madison, Wisconsin on October 25, 2011."

Want to make videos like this of your own? It's not easy or cheap, but Halverson details his gear and set-up on the Vimeo page. You can buy a digital download of the 23-minute extended version on the Dakotalapse website.

Keep clicking for more amazing aurora photos.

1  of  7
PLAY
FULLSCREEN
ZOOM
SHARE THIS SLIDE 
Aurora Borealis, from Bear Lake, Alaska.

FOLLOW HUFFPOST SCIENCE

Unless there's a meteor shower, we don't usually notice things moving up in space. Sped up and enhanced, however, the night sky becomes a bustling world—the clouds, the Milky Way and everything in b...
Unless there's a meteor shower, we don't usually notice things moving up in space. Sped up and enhanced, however, the night sky becomes a bustling world—the clouds, the Milky Way and everything in b...
Filed by Travis Korte  | 
 
 
  • Comments
  • 62
  • Pending Comments
  • 0
  • View FAQ
Post Comment Preview Comment
To reply to a Comment: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to.
View All
Favorites
Recency  | 
Popularity
Page: 1 2 3  Next ›  Last »  (3 total)
06:58 PM on 02/29/2012
Beautiful job with the long exposure photos done in a time lapse progression. The vapor trail after the meteor at 53 seconds was neat.

"Unless there's a meteor shower, we don't usually notice things moving up in space."

Not true, you almost cannot look up at the night sky now without seeing a satellite.
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
photo
BassguyGG
Former Moderate driven Left by eight years of Bush
03:07 PM on 02/27/2012
Magnificent. I never understood how people could watch the Heavens and not see the hand of the Creator in it.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
CapCal
07:31 PM on 02/28/2012
Extremely advance alien race that put us in this rock?
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
photo
ebanks84
Grandma knows best!
12:58 PM on 02/27/2012
Absolutely beautiful. I was flabbergasted in seeing the grass grow right before my eyes. Amazing. And the beautiful lights and shooting stars reminds me so much of home.
12:34 PM on 02/27/2012
Really gives a sense of what it's like to be on a rock spinning out in space. Most time-lapse films feel like the sky is going by -- this one feels like we're the ones moving, which we are.
11:13 AM on 02/27/2012
Something not right with the stars. Looks like single image of stars moving in a single direction in background, not rotating around the north star as they should from South Dakota. Looks cool though, just not real.
11:49 AM on 02/27/2012
It was photoshopped. The stars video was taken with the camera polar aligned then he added the forground later.
11:50 AM on 02/27/2012
The Milky Way is looking to the south, the Aurora are the only shots looking north, but they are real. There are behind the scenes stills and video on my site.
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Brautigan
02:59 AM on 02/27/2012
Wow, this guy is great. The sky is great, too.

Great show!
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
01:18 AM on 02/27/2012
WOW
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
photo
12:20 AM on 02/27/2012
Gorgeous!
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Steve Rockett
12:16 AM on 02/27/2012
beautiful
photo
Merseysidefella
I read the news today oh, boy
07:48 PM on 02/26/2012
Santorum says that all that stuff revolves around a fixed flat Earth
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Steve Rockett
12:17 AM on 02/27/2012
which in turn revolves around him
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
photo
ebanks84
Grandma knows best!
01:01 PM on 02/27/2012
Lol.....:)
photo
L I Beral
Here kittykittykitty
06:40 PM on 02/26/2012
Simply stunning! Something to share with friends.
05:31 PM on 02/26/2012
Got to love people who really love what they are doing and who know how to do it right!
photo
Lahonda
Bynocent Instander
05:13 PM on 02/26/2012
Inspiring!
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Waterlooboy
Alba gu Bràth
03:21 PM on 02/26/2012
Fantastic. No wonder it took us 1000s of years to figure out the Earth wasn't fixed and we weren't the center of the universe.
05:44 PM on 02/26/2012
It may not have taken that long. The Egyptians probably knew about the Earth's movement already and the Greeks knew about it, for sure. The heliocentric model was just not widely accepted because it does not convey much of an advantage without having an actual equation of motion, which we didn't have until Kepler worked out the experimental data analysis and Newton came up with the right dynamic theory. So it was around all the time (even when people believed religiously in the Ptolemaic model)... but never broke trough.
photo
HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
LiberalLee
Yes I am a witch. Deal with it.
12:56 PM on 02/26/2012
MAGNIFICENT!
What I wouldn't give to be able to lay back in a field and actually SEE something like that... :(
A planetarium should be banging Halverson's door down for that footage...