A Very Large 3-D Movie

By Nancy Atkinson - October 13, 2009 at 2:39 PM UTC | Site News

Quick! Grab a pair of red and green 3-D glasses and slap them on to watch this great time lapse video of the Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory, high in the Atacama Desert in Chile. It shows a complete night at the observatory, and you can see the four 8m telescopes and the four 1.8m telescopes of the VLT working, all in 3-D. The video comes from the handiwork of astrophotographer and head Optics Engineer on the VLT,

Stéphane Guisard.

If that name sounds familiar, Stéphane has recently been working with ESO and fellow astrophotographer Serge Brunier on the GigaGalaxy Zoom project.

Click this link to go directly to GigaGalaxy Zoom,

or read one of our

previous articles about them here

. It was made by using two cameras taking pictures simultaneously, which were combined to create an anaglyph time lapse movie. Two notes about the movie: the telescopes and domes were lit by the moonlight, and the International Space Station crosses the sky during the very first seconds of the movie.

Sources:

Stephane Guisard's website,

, Hat tip to

Will Gater

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com