Starship Asterisk*

A Year of Sky on Earth

Explanation: Each panel shows one day. With 360 movie panels, the sky over (almost) an entire year is shown in time lapse format as recorded by a video camera on the roof of the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco, California. The camera recorded an image every 10 seconds from before sunrise to after sunset and from mid-2009 to mid-2010. A time stamp showing the local time of day is provided on the lower right. The videos are arranged chronologically, with July 28 shown on the upper left, and January 1 located about half way down. Although every day lasts 24 hours, daylight lasts longest in the northern hemisphere in June and the surrounding summer months, a fact which can be seen here as the bottom (and soon top) videos are the first to light up with dawn. The initial darkness in the middle depicts the delayed dawn and fewer daylight hours of winter. In the videos, darkness indicates night, blue depicts clear day, while gray portrays pervasive daytime cloud cover. Many videos show complex patterns of clouds moving across the camera's wide field as that day progresses. As the videos collectively end, sunset and then darkness descend first on the winter days just above the middle, and last on the mid-summer near the bottom.

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Actually... i was glad to see it end.

This video can also be found in the Whoop Dee Doo column next to the circular file! Had they used the music from Lost In Space TV show, I would have been a little more interested. (You mean Fluffy is not an astronomical term?)

Also, the many foggy days in midsummer are something you wouldn't see many other places in the U.S.

Clear sky. Clouds. Clear sky. Clouds.


















Rain. Sun. Rain. Sun.


















Ocean. Continent. Ocean. Continent.



Today's APOD is another portrait of the dynamic role of water on planet Earth, and another reminder that the Earth is a habitable planet.

Ann

Took me a while to get my mind around the concept, then it all made wonderful sense. Anybody notice the workers (?) approaching the camera near upper right around 2:50 p.m.?

Lovely! Another enjoyable example of Science meets Art. Good work, Thank you for presenting this video!
btw.: Now I've learned, best time to visit San Francisco is obviously around november.

Also very interesting cloud pattern at 5th column, 7th row from the bottom starting at 2-32, reminds me of auroras

(I'd give it more thumbs, but I'm not allowed.)
*sadface*

I enjoyed it. And there's information there, maybe not on a deep level. Or maybe we're not deep enough to see whatever's there on a deep level.

Beautiful!

Wow, so much in that video. Solar observation, primary weather patterns, art and science all mushed up together. Love it. Thanks.

Indigo_Sunrise wrote:



(I'd give it more thumbs, but I'm not allowed.)
*sadface*

Odd bit of info that not many people know: If you have too many emoticons -- especially the animating ones -- on the same page, it really messes with people who view with older computers. I suppose you were trying to put a wall of 365 thumbs up? And then the next person comes along and quotes you and doubles the thumbs... well, it can get out of hand rather quickly!

A lot of work, but somehow I was bored. I think Mr Murphy should have put more effort into how it was presented and how the user could access it.

Uwe wrote:Lovely! Another enjoyable example of Science meets Art. Good work, Thank you for presenting this video!
btw.: Now I've learned, best time to visit San Francisco is obviously around november.

Actually the best time is late spring (e.g., May) or early fall (e.g., Sept). This year is an exception; summer is much more sunny than usual.

I too like the melding of art and science. There is a lot to see in it but you can also just experience it.

One observation that hasn't been mentioned so far is the prevailing wind direction. It is generally from the NW but occasionally SW and even SE.

Yes, I saw the person appear in a few frames. I also saw the raindrops on in the several pictures taken in the winter.

DLW, Oakland, CA

dlw wrote:

Uwe wrote:Lovely! Another enjoyable example of Science meets Art. Good work, Thank you for presenting this video!
btw.: Now I've learned, best time to visit San Francisco is obviously around november.

Actually the best time is late spring (e.g., May) or early fall (e.g., Sept).

Shhh, don't tell anybody!

dlw wrote:This year is an exception; summer is much more sunny than usual.

Only in Oakland. Here in San Francisco we've been socked in for the last few weeks. Last night was the first time I've seen the Moon in over two weeks. The Bay Area in general, and SF in particular, is the poster child for microclimate. I can travel literally a few blocks north or south and experience significantly different weather.

dlw wrote:I too like the melding of art and science. There is a lot to see in it but you can also just experience it.

One observation that hasn't been mentioned so far is the prevailing wind direction. It is generally from the NW but occasionally SW and even SE.

Yes, I saw the person appear in a few frames. I also saw the raindrops on in the several pictures taken in the winter.

DLW, Oakland, CA

When the prevailing wind is blowing from the south, be sure to carry an umbrella.

By the way, this video is hypnotically beautiful. Some day when I have a lot of time on my hands I'm going to watch it 365 times, tiny frame by tiny frame.

Is it me or do red dawns mostly take place in winter? Why?

rj rl wrote:
Is it me or do red dawns mostly take place in winter? Why?

Red dawns mostly take place in winter because its atmosphere is much drier.

Shakespeare, in his poem Venus and Adonis wrote:

• Like a red morn that ever yet betokened,
  Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field,
  Sorrow to the shepherds, woe unto the birds,
  Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_lore#Red_sky_at_night wrote:

• 'Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.
  Red sky at night, sailor's delight.

Weather systems typically move from west to east, and red clouds result when the sun shines on their undersides at either sunrise or sunset. At these two times of day, the sun's light is passing at a very low angle through a great thickness of atmosphere commonly known as The Belt of Venus. The result of which is the scattering out of most of the shorter wavelengths — the greens, blues, and violets — of the visible spectrum, and so sunlight is heavy at the red end of the spectrum. If the morning skies are red, it is because clear skies to the east permit the sun to light the undersides of moisture-bearing clouds coming in from the west. Conversely, in order to see red clouds in the evening, sunlight must have a clear path from the west in order to illuminate moisture-bearing clouds moving off to the east. There are many variations on this piece of lore, but they all carry the same message.>>

Thanks! Never actually thought about it, albeit it's one of my favourite sky sights. Maybe it's also because of the lower angle of the sun ascending, so the event lasts longer and is more evident.

• 'Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.
  Red sky at night, sailor's delight.

Jesus actually quoted something like that, and agreed with it (just quoting a historical figure!). He said, "When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.' "

As for the video, why are some of the days a lot more orange? Is it smog?

A beautiful idea to collect all the time lapse and show in one single time lapse; differences between seasons can be easily appreciated. Thanks for sharing!