best time lapse video cleanest darkest skies earth
Published on January 14th, 2014
Best Time-Lapse Video: “The cleanest, darkest skies on Earth”
Photographer Nicholas Buer spent 12 days in the San Pedro de Atacama in northern Chile, where he managed to create a spectacular time-lapse video.
“San Pedro is an oasis town in the Atacama and sits at an altitude of 2600m. The town is a great base to explore the fascinating landscapes that surround it, and everything just goes up and up. The Atacama is well-known for what are arguably the cleanest, darkest skies on Earth. Dry air supplemented transparency and high altitude with night sky is unmatched”, says Buer.
“I visited the desert when Venus was located near the center of the Milky Way, an astronomical event that occurs only once every eight years. Also, I scheduled the visit near the autumnal equinox, an ideal time to catch the zodiacal light, a celestial phenomenon that occurs when sunlight touches the Zodiacal dust cloud of the interplanetary space. Light stretching across the sky and shines shortly after sunset as a beam of a UFO, and I was lucky enough to saw this phenomenon every night”, said Buer.
“The Atacama Desert was extremely harsh: cracks your skin because of the dry air, the wind pummels you in every direction and the altitude slows you down and reduces your ability to travel carrying camera gear that weighs more. By the end of the journey I, the equipment and my car suffered a lot, but it was worth it. I wouldn’t have done it nay other way”, Buer said.
Source: Boing Boing, Nicholas Buer
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Mihalka Tiberiu , editor of Discovery-Zone. News portal for science, technology, nature and travel that aims to be the largest site to popularize science and general knowledge. Discovery-Zone brings daily news of science, investigates and analyses the controversial inventions or discoveries of the past century. Find us on Google+