Southern skies time lapse: Nocturnal

Oh my, another amazing time lapse of the night sky: Nocturnal, by photographer Colin Legg (whose work we've seen here before on the BABlog), shows southern skies wheeling and turning majestically overhead.

[Note: For reasons I don't understand, the wrong video was linked here originally. It's fixed now, and I apologize for that.]

Yegads. Pay attention at the 30 second mark as the Southern Cross and Alpha and Beta Centauri rise above a mountain, then at 40 seconds when Comet Lovejoy rises dramatically over the horizon, and again at 49 seconds when a meteor zips across the sky, leaving a persistent train that gets whipped and frothed by high-altitude winds.

In fact, just pay attention to the whole thing. It's gorgeous. And I'm not alone: this video won the best animation category of the 2012 David Malin awards. Malin is one of the best astrophotographers who has ever lived, so this is a prestigious recognition indeed. And well-deserved.

Tip o' the lens cap to Colin Legg himself for letting me know about it.

Related Posts:

- A meteor's lingering tale
- One more Lovejoy time lapse⦠maybe the last
- INSANELY cool picture of Comet Lovejoy
- Time lapse: old rocks and old skies
- Time lapse: Under the Namibian Sky