Category: video

Phases of the Moon

BadAstronomer has posted an awesome video of the moon going through its phases for an entire year.

(it’s particularly awesome in full screen and HD.)

The video is based off a NASA webpage that will generate a picture of the moon for any hour, of any day, in the year of 2012 (and only if you’re in the northern hemisphere near the equator, but close enough). They have lots more videos and images.

Interestingly, the images are all computer generated — they’re not real photos. They are based on high-resolution images and topography data taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Master and Apprentice

Handmade Portraits: The Sword Maker from Etsy on Vimeo.

This video, contains some fascinating reflections from, Korehira Watanabe, one of the few remaining traditional sword makers in Japan.

Particularly intriguing is Watanabe’s somewhat counter-intuitive need to keep exploring new challenges in swordmaking, so that he might keep the ancient traditions alive. He’s also very interested in instilling the same type of drive in his disciple, with the hope that his disciple will someday surpass him.

I personally find this to be a quite appropriate perspective for a teacher.

Scale of the Universe: 62 Orders of Magnitude (1062)

Scale of the Universe 2, by Cary and Michael Huang. WARNING: look out for ads on the site.

In a modern variant on the Powers of Ten video, Cary and Michael Huang have created an excellent flash game that spans the scale of the universe, from the smallest, only hypothesized particles, through atomic, human, planetary, and galactic scales (to name a but a few), to the size of the universe itself. It goes further than the Cell Size and Scale flash app.

The link is here, but look out for an advertisement that takes up the game window, which will eventually let you through (or you can click the “Skip Ad” link on the bottom right of the ad).