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A camera was installed on the roof of the Exploratorium in San Francisco to record the sky every ten second, every day, for a year. At 24 frames per second, that’s a six-minute time-lapse movie every day. Ken Murphy arranged 360 of those videos onto a grid in this video, so all those days play simultaneously. You should watch this in full-screen mode, then you can keep up with the time in the lower right corner. Apparently the bars just above the middle represent winter. Read more about the project at murphlab. Link -via The Daily What
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Here is a watch by Japanese designer Ryohei Yoshiyuki called the “Time of the Sky.” It is designed to help you tell the time by the color of the sky. Although I think it would be confusing, really, it is interesting and does offer those of us who prefer indicators for hours and minutes the option of seeing what time it *actually* is. (I’m thinking perhaps a sundial would be a tad cheaper.)
Link -via My Modern Met
There are more insects in the atmosphere than you’ll ever see. In fact, you don’t see them all because they fly really high. How high? NPR has an animated video with the surprising answers.
When British scientist Jason Chapman told us (listen to the radio piece or watch our video) there are 3 billion insects passing over your head in a summer month, he was talking about his survey in Great Britain. Closer to the equator, he says, the numbers should rise. He wouldn’t be surprised, for example, that in the sky over Houston or New Orleans there could be 6 billion critters passing overhead in a month.
Comments Off A History of the Sky is Ken Murphy’s ongoing project to record time-lapse images of the sky. Each square in the video represents a day, and each day is in order:
This is a work in progress. Currently, an image of the sky is being captured every 10 seconds from a camera installed on the roof of the Exploratorium, on the edge of San Francisco Bay. The images collected over each 24-hour period are assembled into a 6 minute movie (at 24 frames/second).
The final piece will consist of a large projected grid of 365 movies, each representing one day of the year, and cycling in parallel through consecutive 24-hour periods. The viewer can stand back and observe the atmospheric phenomena of an entire year in just a few minutes, or approach the piece to focus on a particular day.
This will also be an active piece. The camera will continue to collect images and integrate them with the montage daily. The visualization will therefore vary from day to day, and will always display the most recent 365 days.
Last night a strange spiral lit up the sky over Norway, from Trøndelag to Finnmark, and many people took pictures.
The phenomenon began when what appeared to be a blue light seemed to soar up from behind a mountain. It stopped mid-air, then began to circulate.
Within seconds a giant spiral had covered the entire sky. Then a green-blue beam of light shot out from its centre – lasting for ten to twelve minutes before disappearing completely.
Russia denied any missile tests in the area. Link to story. Link to photo gallery. -via Metafilter
(image credit: Svein-Egil Haugen)
Its hard to believe these little things can even fly. They are about as small as a quarter and are simply cool.
Ilan Kroo and his colleagues at Stanford hope to use them for Mars exploration or atmospheric research one day!
From the Upcoming 
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It looks awesome but will it fly … or will it blend? I do believe this is what we all wanted as a kid … lucky guys!
A group of daredevils set sail on the ultimate magical childhood dream adventure today, traveling in a flying car for a 42 day journey from London to Timbuktu — a place that’s had a mystical, “middle of nowhere” reputation for decades. The ‘Parajet Skycar’ can change from ground to flying mode in a mere 3 minutes, and will make the epic 3,600-mile (5,800-kilometer) journey by both land and air.
(image credit: Luc Arnold)
