You’ve seen time-lapse videos of the night sky here before, but this one is particularly beautiful, awe-inspiring, and soothing. It’s even more impressive in full-screen mode. Randy Halverson shot the scenes in South Dakota, Utah, Colorado, and Wisconsin. You have to get way out beyond the light pollution to see the stars this way! The music was specially composed for the project by Bear McCreary, who does the music for the TV shows The Walking Dead, Battlestar Galactica, and more. You can learn more about the video at Halverson’s website. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy

See also: Bad Astronomy’s post about the astronomical events in the video. Link

The 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi, although beautiful, was 82 minutes long with no dialogue or narration. Wyatt Hodgson sped it up 1552% to fit into five minutes, which is a treat for the eyes you surely have time for. The music is “The Holy Egoism of Genius” by The Art of Noise. -via I Am Bored

A Sulcata tortoise enjoys a salad, which probably took hours in real time. With time-lapse fast forward photography and a dramatic soundtrack, he’s an unstoppable eating machine. -via Geekosystem

(YouTube Link)

Hudson Urban Bicycles decided to try out something interesting in New York’s SoHo neighborhood-chain up a bike, take a picture of it every day and see how long it takes to disappear, piece by piece.

The findings were surprising at first (it took nearly six months for the first piece to be stolen), then slipped rapidly into familiar territory (only took another 30 days or so for the bike to disappear completely).

Hey, at least the thief (or thieves) waited almost six months before snatching the bike up piece by piece, that has to be a world record!

–via Geekosystem

The Chinese construction company Broad Group built a 30-story hotel in just 15 days (360 hours) in December. This time-lapse video shows the process. See another, longer video showing more details at Geekosystem. Link

I grew up during the Cold War, with an image of Moscow as a drab, grey, cold, Soviet citadel. But the Cold War has been over for 20 years! This video shows the city as beautiful and colorful, both historical and modern. -via Everlasting Blort

Ben Lean recorded these scenes in Toronto December 16-18 and presents the shopping frenzy in time-lapse for your enjoyment. Aren’t you glad you’re through with Christmas shopping? What -you aren’t? Ha! -via Nag on the Lake

Soon to be a full-length feature, TimeScapes by photographer Tom Lowe is a breathtakingly beautiful video.

This is production footage from my forthcoming debut film, “TimeScapes,” a portrait of the American Southwest. This video was filmed and edited at 4K (4069×2304) resolution, four times greater than regular 1080p HD. A 4K DCP file is available upon request. Shot on Red Epic and Canon RAW still cameras.

I can’t decide which part I like best: the landscapes, the rolling stars, the music, or the dancing VLA dishes. You’ll want to watch the trailer twice; the second time in full screen. -via Geekosystem

Thirty-five years after Saigon changed it name, Ho Chi Minh City is a busy, modern metropolis. Rob Whitworth produced this time-lapse video.

Everyone who has visited Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam knows part of the magic (love it or hate it) is in the traffic. Ever since I first set foot in HCMC I have been captivated by the cities energy. Saigon is a city on the move unlike anything I have experienced before which I wanted to capture and share.

The music is “Mondo ’77″ by Looper. -via Arbroath

Scientists in Antarctica used a time-lapse camera to capture the formation of a brinicle — an icicle made from brine. As the salty water sank, it froze, forming a spike of brine down to the seafloor. As it grew over several hours, the brinicle killed everything in its path, including numerous unlucky starfish.

Link -via Geekosystem

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

Michael König edited a sequence of photographs taken from the International Space Station (ISS) between August and October into a time-lapse video of an orbit over the earth. The altitude is approximately 350 kilometers. The music is “Do Dekor” by Jan Jelinek. -Thanks özi!

A view of the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates was recorded from 4AM to 4AM over the weekend. The time-lapse shows shadows moving with the sun, one tiny little cloud that wanders over, the fountain show seen as flashes of light, and strangely ominous music. -via Geeks Are Sexy

On October 26th, explosives opened the Condit Dam in Washington State to allow the free flow of the White Salmon River after 98 years. The reservoir took about two hours to drain, shown here in time-lapse. Read about the dam dismantling project at National Geographic. Link -via the Presurfer

A beautiful and trippy time-lapse video of the midnight sun in Iceland, filmed in June of 2011. From the vimeo description:

Iceland is a landscape photographers paradise and playground, and should be number 1 on every photographers must visit list. Iceland during the Midnight Sun is in sort of a permanent state of sunset. The sun never full sets and travels horizontally across the horizon throughout the night, as can be seen in the opening shot and at the :51 second mark in the video.

During the Arctic summer, sunset was at midnight and sunrise was at 3am. The Arctic summer sun provided 24 hours a day of light, with as much as 6 hours daily of “Golden light”. Once the sun had set it wouldn’t even get dark enough for the stars to come out, and they don’t start to reappear until August.

-via Metafilter

Watch Paul Alexander Thornton draw flowers with ballpoint pens, watercolors, and ink. This piece took three weeks, but that’s condensed into three minutes and change in the video. Thornton also wrote and performed the music!

To inaugurate the new partnership between LEGOland and Ford, engineers built a Ford Explorer out of LEGO bricks for the theme park in Florida. It probably took them a long time to put the 380,000 bricks together, but thanks to time=lapse video, you can watch it in about 90 seconds. -via Buzzfeed

If you read the New York Times story we linked last week, The Secret to Success, you were probably impressed with the graphics that accompanied the story. They were created by Doyle Partners, and now you can watch how they created those illusions. Laughing Squid has another video showing how they put GRIT in the gymnasium -that one is more realistic. Link

Ken Desrosiers grew the biggest pumpkin in Connecticut history. He also kept a camera on it so we could enjoy this time-lapse video of its journey to 1,487 pounds! Notice the solar panels leaves moving to grab all the sunshine they can. Videogum has a list of neat taglines for this video. Link -via The Daily What

Ashley Hackshaw (with help from her 4-year-old daughter) used 2,000 buttons to create a portrait of artist Frida Kahlo. Watch the process in this time-lapse video. Link -Thanks, Ashley!

The Unseen Sea is a lovely time-lapse video of the (foggy) skies over the San Francisco Bay Area, shot over one year by Simon Christen.

Simply marvelous! Hit play or go to Link [Vimeo] – via bb-blog

Cameraman Joe Clarke took this mesmerizing time-lapse of how animator Barry JC Purves manipulates his Tchaikovsky puppet for Russian TV:

Whilst working on the film I shot this series of time-lapses with the help of students. Instead of just leaving the camera to click away at set intervals, we manually took a frame in synch with the frames Barry was taking as he animated, showing the puppet moving at his intended 25fps, almost!

Hit play or go to Link [Vimeo]

Kim Pimmel placed a magnet in the middle of a pile of soap bubbles and then poured ferrofluid along the outer edge. Watch magnetic forces pull the ferrofluid through the bubbles! It’s an amazing demonstration of the use of macro lenses and time-lapse photography. -via Colossal

Phillip Mendonça-Vieira accidentally found himself in the possession of 12,000 screenshots of the New York Times homepage from September 2010 to July 2011, which he arranged into a video for your perusal. There are some stories that were so big you can follow them even at this breakneck speed. At his site, Mendonça-Vieira writes about the ephemeral quality of pages like this, which are rarely if ever archived. Link -via Laughing Squid

The Norwegian Coastal Express cruise on the Hurtigruten from Bergen to Kirkenes is 2600 kilometers and normally takes 134 hours. This version only take five minutes, but you’ll have to skip the karioke night. The actual-speed version was aired on Norwegian public TV, which took a week. Link -via The Daily What

A beautiful time-lapse video of the night sky over Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, from Daniel Dragon Films. The Outer Banks is a wonderful place that I’ve visited for vacation dozens of times. Learn more about the stars you see here at Bad Astronomy Blog. Link

One thing we should always remember is that the the earth is spinning around while the stars stay relatively constant in the sky. YouTube member bulletpeople took a beautiful existing time-lapse video of the stars and edited it to show the stars as static in the sky, which highlights the rotation of the earth. -via reddit

Filmmaker Terje Sorgjerd (previously at Neatorama) set up cameras on El Teide, the highest mountain in Spain, from April 4th to 11th, 2011. The object was to take a time-lapse video of the Milky Way. However, a sand storm blew in from the Sahara desert. Sorgjerd assumed his project had been ruined, but was pleased with the resulting video. -via the Presurfer

Terje Sorgjerd took footage of the Aurora Borealis around Kirkenes, Norway, near the Russian border. A week of footage is condensed in this beautiful time-lapse video. -via Metafilter

Watch grapes turn into raisins in only 30 seconds, through the magic of time-lapse photography. This video follows a bunch of grapes over three months. You can make raisins yourself, in a week or so, but you should separate the raisins to maximize the drying surface and put them in a warm place, like in direct sunlight. -via the Presurfer

There’s something very soothing about this presentation. It’s a time-lapse video of people pouring paint over a rectangular solid while Philip Glass’ String Quartet No. 3 plays in the background. The art is by Holton Rower and the video is directed by Dave Kaufman.

via The Presurfer | Rower’s Website

Those of you who been around Neatorama for a while know that infrequent author Johnny Cat, our own Don Quixote, went to school to study windmills. He is now close to finishing his classes, and ready to do what you see in this time-lapse video.

One of the aspects of working in the wind industry that I am particularly looking forward to is the installation and commissioning of new turbines. It’s a process that involves precise planning, coordination and execution. Teams don’t have the luxury of putting up the 300? tube sections, and then breaking off until the next day, because the hollowness of the tube will capture the wind (these are built in windy areas, remember), and a vortex will form, tearing the structure apart! Nope, the entire tower needs to go up in four or more phases: bottom tube, top tube, nacelle, and hub- all in the least amount of time possible.

The music in the video is “Elevation” by U2. Link

In case you couldn’t stay up all night and watch it, or you are someplace where it wasn’t visible, here is the video of last night’s lunar eclipse. Four hours of moonlight are compressed into two minutes. The video was captured over Gainesville, Florida by professor William Castleman. -via The Daily What

Natalie’s family took a picture of her every day, from birth up until she turned ten years old, and cut all the photographs together to this impressive time-lapse video clip.

via kottke.org and matt

This time-lapse video shows workers in Changsha, China building a 15-story hotel in six days:

The Ark Hotel, constructed with optimal energy, material and time savings, was reportedly not only more efficient but cheaper to make. Industry experts said there was only 1 percent construction waste.

The sustainable hotel already had its foundation so construction workers only took 46 hours to finish the building using pre-fabricated columns and modules as well as modern construction techniques. Once the main structural components were completed, only another 90 hours were required to finish the building enclosure.

Link via J-Walk Blog

Filmmaker François Vautier put an ant colony inside a scanner and took a picture once a week every week for five years. This time-lapse video shows the colony gradually filling and eroding the machine.

via GearFuse

It’s a river of people! Over 40,000 runners participated in the New York City Marathon last weekend. Thanks to time-lapse videography, you can watch most of them get started. -via Buzzfeed

Hi folks! Well, Samuel Cockedey has told me he’s gotten a brand new time-lapse video for you Neatoramanauts, lucky you! This time he’s changed his from filming his fantastic soothing landscape vistas of Tokyo and has gotten down to the nitty-gritty of the city life full of it’s hustle and bustle – specifically focusing upon the realm of transportation.

I can’t help but watch in awe at how all the scenes coalesce into a well oiled machine of movement and light…one could easily (or rather naively!) imagine the light pulses and streams of activity like that of data flowing through a massive computer.

The music is in collaboration with Paul Frankland, aka Woob, an ambient/electronic artist whose stuff you can find in the link below. Also, just search for Samuel’s name to see his other videos here on Neatorama! I highly suggest checking out the video in full screen mode or on the Vimeo site itself for a larger view…oh and plant on some headphones!

Samuel Cockedey – Link
Paul Frankland (aka Woob) – Link

Sally Davies took pictures of a McDonalds burger and fries for 137 days, and the pictures never changed. It wasn’t the first such experiment, but could it be replicated under normal conditions? Some say a Happy Meal will last forever, but YouTube member GitEmSteveDave had very different results. You can skip the first minute if you’re in a hurry.  -via Breakfast Links

This time-lapse video captured footage in Paris from January 2007 through September 2010. It shows the deconstruction of one building and the erection of another in its place. Videographer Ramon added pop-up graphics that reveal what’s going on as time progresses.

via Gizmodo

Michael Salisbury made this time-lapse video of the 2010 Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The song is “Phoneme” by STS9. -via Laughing Squid

Previously: Panorama of the 2009 Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta and video of the Reno Balloon Race 2006

Astronaut and educator Don Pettit recorded this time-lapse video from the International Space Station. It shows day turning into night as the Earth rotates beneath him.

via Radley Balko

This time-lapse video by YouTube user szyzyg shows asteroids in our solar system as they have been discovered since 1980:

Notice now the pattern of discovery follows the Earth around its orbit, most discoveries are made in the region directly opposite the Sun. You’ll also notice some clusters of discoveries on the line between Earth and Jupiter, these are the result of surveys looking for Jovian moons. Similar clusters of discoveries can be tied to the other outer planets, but those are not visible in this video.

As the video moves into the mid 1990′s we see much higher discovery rates as automated sky scanning systems come online. Most of the surveys are imaging the sky directly opposite the sun and you’ll see a region of high discovery rates aligned in this manner.

At the beginning of 2010 a new discovery pattern becomes evident, with discovery zones in a line perpendicular to the Sun-Earth vector. These new observations are the result of the WISE (Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer) which is a space mission that’s tasked with imaging the entire sky in infrared wavelengths.

Astronomers have so far found about half a million minor planets in our solar system.

via Popular Science

David Heredia digitally colored one of his drawings using Photoshop. Using the time lapse special effect, he is able to condense the 68 minute project into 4 minutes. The music track “Egyptian” is by Hossam Ramzy & Rafa El Tachuela from the Album Flamenco Arabe.

If you missed the Perseids meteor shower, take heart: Henry Jun Wah Lee captured the event with this amazingly beautiful time lapse of the celestial event against the background of the Milky Way Galaxy, in the skies above Joshua Tree National Park.

Link [embedded Vimeo clip]

Unique Daily has the time lapse video clip: Link

Samuel Cockedey, has been kind enough to give me a heads up whenever he had a time-lapse video for you Neatoramanuats in the past and so it was great when he contacted me recently to tell me he’s got one hot off the hard drive! A little slower paced than his previous works it still has plenty of amazing shots of the Tokyo skyline and city.

A photographer and a video artist hailing from France, Samuel has been living and working in Tokyo since 2000 and films and edits these videos as a hobby of his on the weekends. When I asked him why he takes time-lapse videos of the skyline of Tokyo instead of hitting the streets and getting the human element he said,

“I like wide shots because they’re more cinematic and more surreal. From afar it almost looks like an alien planet or colony, it leaves more to the imagination. I tend to find street shots more trivial, less dreamy and exciting.”

You can see his other videos that we have up here on Neatorama just below:

Static : Pulse – Link
(autumn) – Link
Remanence : Variance – Link

Samual Cockedey’s Website – Link

This time-lapse video shows the changing moods of people in America over the course of a day, as ascertained by emotional keywords that they use on Twitter. It was created by computer scientist Alan Mislove at Northeastern University in Boston:

Mislove speculates that a signal shines though because the sheer abundance of data means that occasional misinterpretations are lost in the crowd. Bryan Routledge at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, agrees. With colleagues, he recently used a similarly simple analysis of words in tweets to determine whether Twitter mirrors conventional opinion polls. “The volume is massive, so the subtle stuff kind of washes out,” he says.

Because Twitter data is publicly available, Routledge says mood can be sampled more quickly, simply and cheaply than using traditional polling tools – albeit more crudely.

Steven Gray at University College London, who also crowdsources data through Twitter, agrees. For all of the problems with decoding the data, “Twitter offers researchers a unique, live data set that changes by the minute”, he says.

Link via Geekosystem | Project Website | Previously: Tweet Sleeve: Wear Your Emotions on Your Sleeve

[Vimeo - Link]

Vid Nikolic posted a time-lapse video of himself carving a watermelon. The design starts out simple and builds into an impressively intricate display. The carving took about 40 minutes to complete.

Link via Bits and Pieces

This time-lapse video was recorded during six hours at the Enoshima Aquarium in Fujisawa, Japan. It shows a Japanese spider crab shedding its shell. The crab measures over twelve feet across.

via Pink Tentacle | Previously: Crabzilla