Whimsical and Beautiful New Timelapse: Borrego Stardance

By Nancy Atkinson - July 29, 2013 at 3:14 PM UTC | Observing
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Just outside of Borrego Springs, California, monsters lurk. Life-size metal statues of dinosaurs, dragons, and wooly mammoths stand among giant insects, birds and several other creatures. But the 600,000 acre Anzo-Borrego State Park is also an astronomer's dream, since it is one of four communities in the world to be classified a "Dark Sky Community" by the International Dark Sky Association.

Timelapse maven Gavin Heffernan from

Sunchaser Pictures

has now combined these monsters and the beautiful dark sky for his latest astronomical timelapse video, Borrego Stardance. It's an unusual and fanciful look at the night sky –- where else can you see dragons and star trails at the same time? Watch below -- and crank the volume for added effect!

"Despite the grueling 112 degree temperatures, my team and I had an amazing shoot, with some of the clearest Milky Way footage we've ever captured" Gavin wrote Universe Today via email, "as well as some exciting creature-filled star trails, and more experiments with "Starscaping" (switching from stars to trails mid-shot)."

It's a beautiful addition to Gavin's

already impressive timelapse and video collection.

You can see a behind-the-scenes video of the Borrego site

here.

You can find more information on the statues at the

Galleta Meadows website.

BORREGO STARDANCE from Sunchaser Pictures on Vimeo.

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