UC-Berkeley and Google looking for amateur images of upcoming August eclipse
In the hope of producing a long movie of the August eclipse that will cross the entire continental United States, the University of California-Berkeley and Google have teamed up to put together a project that will gather images taken by amateurs.
The Eclipse Megamovie Project is seeking more than a thousand amateur astronomers and avid photographers to record the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse and upload their photos to be stitched together into a movie documenting the path of totality from landfall in Oregon until the moon’s shadow slips over the Atlantic Ocean off South Carolina.
While no one on the ground will see the total eclipse for more than 2 minutes and 40 seconds, depending on how close they are to the center of the path of totality, the images collected by the Megamovie’s volunteer team will be turned into a 90-minute eclipse movie unlike anything seen before. Even an airplane flying along the path of totality can only capture at most a four- to five-minute movie, since the moon’s shadow moves along the ground at up to 1,500 miles per hour. The last time anyone tried to stitch together eclipse images like this may have been in the 1800s via hand-drawn sketches, without the benefit of today’s modern digital technology.
While I think this is a great idea, I must state my reservations about UC-Berkeley. This university is hostile to free speech, and actually encourages violence against conservatives who either attend the university or come to speak there. To work with it on this project would be a kind of endorsement of that behavior.
In the hope of producing a long movie of the August eclipse that will cross the entire continental United States, the University of California-Berkeley and Google have teamed up to put together a project that will gather images taken by amateurs.
The Eclipse Megamovie Project is seeking more than a thousand amateur astronomers and avid photographers to record the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse and upload their photos to be stitched together into a movie documenting the path of totality from landfall in Oregon until the moon’s shadow slips over the Atlantic Ocean off South Carolina.
While no one on the ground will see the total eclipse for more than 2 minutes and 40 seconds, depending on how close they are to the center of the path of totality, the images collected by the Megamovie’s volunteer team will be turned into a 90-minute eclipse movie unlike anything seen before. Even an airplane flying along the path of totality can only capture at most a four- to five-minute movie, since the moon’s shadow moves along the ground at up to 1,500 miles per hour. The last time anyone tried to stitch together eclipse images like this may have been in the 1800s via hand-drawn sketches, without the benefit of today’s modern digital technology.
While I think this is a great idea, I must state my reservations about UC-Berkeley. This university is hostile to free speech, and actually encourages violence against conservatives who either attend the university or come to speak there. To work with it on this project would be a kind of endorsement of that behavior.