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Skyglow: Imagine starry nights over cities

SKYGLOW from Sunchaser Pictures on Vimeo.

Gavin Heffernan and Harun Mehmedinovic recently released this experimental time-lapse video for International Dark Sky Week (April 13-19, 2015). The video – endorsed by the International Dark Sky Association – lets you imagine what it would look like if you could see an incredible night sky of stars and star trails over the light-polluted city of Los Angeles.

Gavin wrote to EarthSky:

We’re trying to raise awareness for part of a bigger Kickstarter project we’re running until May 9. We’ve got 22 days to raise $50,000 so it’s an uphill battle, but momentum is building.

What we’ve learned from our research is that many of the required changes to stop light pollution are very small. A big part of the problem is that 50% of the light we use points up instead of down. The point of this video and SKYGLOWPROJECT.com overall is to inspire and show people just what’s possible!

There’s also an album of stills and behind the scenes pics with captions here.

What we at EarthSky love about the video is that it really does give you a sense of the majesty of the night sky, wheeling by – Earth spinning, meteors flying, stars twinkling – over our heads always, unseen by us city dwellers. Nicely done, guys.

By the way, we had a problem with the video starting and stopping the first time we tried to play it. If that happens to you, Gavin has this advice:

We uploaded the video in large 1080 HD format, so the best way to play it without jitters is to play, then pause it, then let the whole thing load first. Hope that’s not too much of a pain.

Thank you, Gavin and Harun! Good luck on your project.

Posted 
April 17, 2015
 in 
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