A Sardegna day to night to day timelapse (aka The Holy Grail of Timelapses)

Actually, I shot the footage of this timelapse more than 3 years ago. Though I kindof “lost” the images on my backup storage and forgot about it. A couple of days ago, I stumbled upon the files…

I sent a few days at a farm in northern Sardegna, Italy during a late August full moon. The terrace of the main building offered this splendid veiw of the countryside and pigs enclosure (you may see a few pigs running around at the end of the video). The full moon cast a shadow all night long, while the stars pass around Polaris.

The timelapse was shot between 19:44 and 08:53, covering 13 hours with 777 single exposures.
Post processing in Lightroom and LRTimelapse

Autumn in Styria @ Klapotetzstrasse

The southern parts of Austria, along the border to Slovenia, are known for its wine. The wine is grown on the slopes of nearly every hill. To prevent birds from feasting excessively on the wine, farmers installed huge versions of noise making ratchets, called Klapotetz. These devices, the largest are up to 16 meters in height, reach back at least to the 18th century. They are found especially dense around the Klapotetzstrasse.

It is a really wonderful reagion to spend some time. In autumn, when colours are rich, seems to be the best time to be there…

Total solar eclipse 2017 timelapses from Riverton, Wyoming

After working through all the data collected from the solar eclipse in August, I combined the wide angle images (8mm lens) and the images captured through my 600mm travel telescope to timelapses. The wide-angle video is the result of more than 800 single exposures, covering the day from around 6am till 5pm. The most interresting part around totality is significantly slowed down, as totality would be over in a blink. During partial phase, I was so busy trying to fix my automated triggering system, that I did not realize the clouds until post processing. So it was really pleasing to see all the clouds above my site vanish moments before totality began. On the other hand, the remaining clouds increased the view of the shadow of the moon passing over, which is just amazing!
The inlay in the wide angle video is derived from the high res video.

I am really pleased with the results, but check for yourself!

Road Trip USA 2017 – timelapse

I condensed in this video the first 18 days on the road to a 5 minute movie. A lot of countryside besides the roads may be seen, but the video gives just a hint of all the beauty lying beyond, when you get out of the car an make a few paces. So, get out of the car and enjoy the places you would otherwise rush by 😉

The following map (generated in google maps with a few marker points along the route; the full path would exceed the maximum allowed waypoints) shows the coarse path we went:

About the video:
– 4K action cam attached to the upper right corner of the windscreen with a suction cup mount
– camera captured a still image every 3 seconds
– covering 19 days (18 on the road)
– almost 80 hours driving
– more than 3500 miles covered in the video
– 94500 images in 257GB data

Monument Valley from night to day

In the night of 2017-08-14 I created a timelapse with the milky way travelling above Monument Valley. Clouds and the crescent moon did interfere the beautiful sight of the millions of stars above one of the most impressive sights in the US. On the other hand, an amazing sunrise compensated for the second half of the night 🙂

Roadtrip USA 2017

Holidays… Usually I like to go on holidays with minimum amount of planning (ahead). Though this time, planning started more than 6 months prior to departure. The reason for the long planning phase was the total solar eclipse of 2017 (also cited as “The Great American Eclipse”). Choosing the right place and combining the eclipse day with sight seeing, adventure, photography opportunities, etc. took quite some time.

The final tour plan consisted of 4 major themes:

  • Route 66 (from LA to New Mexico)
  • National Parks (escpecially Yellowstone)
  • Solar Eclipse in Wind River park
  • Recreation in Florida

Including Florida, we made a tour of impressive 5000 miles, 6 National Parks in 10 states. (If you are interrested in our tour detailes, drop me a message)

Here is a small set of photos, representing the wonderful places we’ve been to. (For the solar eclipse photos, see the previous post)

Total Solar Eclipse in Turkey 2026-03-29

It has been a bit more than 6 years since I could see the total solar eclipse in Austria (11th August 1999), when I found an advert for an eclipse trip to Turkey for March 2006. The amateur astronomers from Viennese Astro-Station-Conrad organized this tour, where more than 300 enthusiasts and eclipsophiles participated and travelled to a hotel near Side. The holiday resort at the mediterranean sea was perfectly placed in the path of totality.

Since I first saw prominences through a telescope with hydrogen (H-alpha) filter, and results from the 1999 eclipse were mediocre (I only had a tripod and manual trigger), my dream was to capture prominences during the eclipse. For good results, a tracking mount is required. I onyl had a shaky EQ2 mount, which is built for telescopes with up to 4 kg. My initial plan was to use 2 cameras. Though I could further borrow a third camera as well as another mirror lens.

But how to mount these three cameras? I could not find a base supporting 3 cameras – especially none suitable to attach to the EQ2. I came up with an aluminium frame and pipe clamps from the hardware store. The contraption is definitely unconventional. The total weight put on the EQ2 is also way above the specified limits. Luckily, there were no major issues. Only the little motor struggled from time to time to keep the gear coupling.

The setup:

  • Minolta Dynax 7, Sigma 135-400mm f/4.5-5.6 DG APO @ 400mm
  • Konica-Minolta Dynax 7d, MC MTO 11CA (1000mm mirror lens)
  • Canon 20d, MC MTO 11CA

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