The Slideshows
On this page you wll find Astronomical slideshows that have been created by NYAA members. The slideshows are full multimedia presentations, so make sure you have speakers! You may require a browser-plugin if this is the first time you have viewed a Photodex slide show. You may be prompted to download and install the plugin. If you have trouble, click
here to get the plugin. Note: some shows may appear slow to initialize, depending on their size, and the speed of the connection.
Pleiades Occultation (3:04) by Andreas Gada
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On October 20, 2006 the Pleiades were occultated by the 24-day-old waning crescent Moon. To document the passage of the moon through the Pleiades Andreas Gada took 1063 images at 10-second intervals using a Canon 20Da camera attached to a Starfire 130 ED APO refractor from his property at Oak Heights, Ontario. By using .5 second exposures at f/6 and ISO 800 he was able to capture earthshine on the moon and stars down to 9th magnitude. These images were imported into ProShow Gold to create a spectacular 100x time-lapse movie of this event.
You may want to view the show several times to see all the subtle details:
the clouds moving past the moon at the beginning when the moon was low on the horizon;
the disappearance of the stars behind the bright limb of the moon (17 in all) and their re-appearance (16 in all) from behind the dark limb some time later as the moon glides gracefully across the screen;
the twinkling of the brighter stars;
the slow drift of the stars in the frame caused by polar alignment;
and the slight image shift halfway through the sequence when the scope was bumped.
Libya Eclipse (6:12) by Andreas Gada
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On March 29, 2006 a total solar eclipse was visible from the Libyan Desert. To document this dynamic event Andreas Gada took over 1980 images over a 3-hour period from just before first contact, when the first nibble is taken out of the sun, through totality, to just after forth contact.
To create this time-lapse movie each image was manually registered, using MaxDSLR, (to correct for image drift, periodic gear error, wind vibration, etc.) before being imported into ProShow Gold for animation.
The resulting movie shows the steady progression of the moon across the face of the sun at 125x its normal speed during the partial phase. During this phase if you look closely you will notice scintillation on the edge of the sun.
During totality the pace is reduced to 1.8x normal speed to allow every aspect of totality from Baileys beads, the diamond ring, the chromosphere, prominences, the wispy streamers of the corona and the face of the new moon, to be revealed in its fully glory.
The show ends, a day later, with a thin crescent moon setting over the Mediterranean.
Egypt Eclipse by Malcolm Park
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A slide show about the week of March 29th, 2006 telling the story of a trip to chase the Total Solar Eclipse in El Saloum, Egypt by Malcolm Park and friends from the RASC Niagara.
Starfest 25th Anniversary Retrospective
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Original music by John Merchant and friends, this show was created by Malcolm Park with images from NYAA members, and shown Friday night at Starfest 2006
Mercury Transit by Malcolm Park
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A time lapse series of images showing the recent Transit of Mercury and sunset. November 8th, 2006, Kitt Peak Observatory, Arizona, USA. Taken over the entire event, right through sunset, the sequence of 6 hours worth of images is compressed into a show of about 5 minutes in length. Watch for the green flash at the end of the sequence!
Flight Path (1:28) by Andreas Gada
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The invisible highway across the sky is revealed in this time-lapse movie showing planes traversing the sky eastward as the stars rise to meet them. Andreas Gada took 394 images on October 29, 2005 from Oak Heights (approximately 150 km east of Toronto) to document the evening rush hour for flights out of Torontos Pearson International Airport in the night sky.
Circumpolar (2:02) by Andreas Gada
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Circumpolar reveals the motion of the stars around the north celestial pole on August 5, 2006. As the night progresses you will notice that the sky becomes darker as the 10-day-old moon sets. This is followed by clouds, the nemesis of astronomers, moving in from the west to blot out the stars.
Orion Transit (2:30) by Andreas Gada
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One of the gems of the winter sky is the bright constellation, Orion. This time-lapse movie made by Andreas Gada on January 20/21, 2007, shows the Mighty Hunter chasing his prey across the sky for over nine hours.
Nirvana by Malcolm Park
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May 12, 2007. An adventure to the promised land. What is it like to spend a night in the wilderness, in the middle of nowhere, with wolves howling in the distance, a dark moonless night, and the perfect location on an old abandoned air strip? Watch the slideshow :)
