Adam Block - 2021-12-26
This is one of the highest resolution color time-lapses that shows the expansion of the Crab Nebula Supernova remnant over a period of 20 years. Our lives are short and astrophotographers can only capture a small part of the this amazing cosmic movie in a lifetime. I am fortunate to have begun my astrophotography career at the time CCD astro-imagery began to become widely available (mid-1990s). As such this time-lapse stretches from the beginning of that era all the way to today. These are EPOCHS of technology, of a lifetime of one passionate astronomer, and of course of the ever unfolding beauty of the Cosmos. #supernova #CrabNebula #astrophotography #timelapse #animation #awesome Special Thanks to: Alan Strauss and Travis Deyoe (http://SkyCenter.arizona.edu ) for allowing me to capture the new image. I hope to live long enough to do another frame in 9-10 years.... fingers crossed! Also thanks to Brian Valente for helping me get started in Premier Pro and to Simon Tang for helping me create a cinematic version of what would have been a banal blinking blooper reel. For educational/classroom purposes, a "plain" version of this video without introduction and voiceover can be found here: https://youtu.be/zyejd1N8d-U Some notes (many of them)! 1. The still frames from which this animation is derived can be found at: https://www.adamblockphotos.com/m1.html 2. The VLT image is one of the oldest high resolution "color" images available that has the resolution that is comparable to the later images of 2012 and 2021. https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso9948f/ It is remarkable to compare data from an 8 meter telescope to a telescope 1/10th the size. However the VLT image is not a full color image and it isn't quite as deep (in overall brightness) compared to the future frames. This means when watching the transitions between frames, watch the motion of the filaments and do not be overly concerned with the mismatch in color and brightness with this old VLT image. 3. One of the main challenges of creating a high quality time-lapse like this is to be able to process the large astronomical data sets and create frames that closely match each other. These are not "snap shots." The 2012 and 2021 images are complex data sets which include H-alpha emission. This extra dimension of light creates better contrast in the filaments and increases the difficulty in processing (to match frames) exponentially. 4. Much of the method of image processing used to create this product can be found at http://AdamBlockStudios.com
Being able to see the universe in motion is truly a gift that the persistence of astronomical study has given us.
This really puts the vastness of space into perspective. The scale of the universe is so big it's almost impossible to visualize how far things actually are. But seeing how little that nebula has grown in the past 20 years makes it just a little bit easier to understand. I can't wait for the images we get to see from the James Webb Telescope!
When you think of the images hubble captured it's really exciting to think about the images JWT will capture, it's going to blow minds 🤯
@billy Yeah I can't wait
The universe is unreasonable in its largeness. To think those shock waves are half the speed of light, and in 20 years only moves a couple mm in the images. Which is just our local bodies too. It's all just too much. Error: cpu not up to task.
"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
@Swen McHeath What's that device Zaphod survived, the thing that shows you to scale just how small you are relative to space, which drives all normal people mad... I can't quite recall the Adams name for it. Funny shit.
It's amazing that we can see movement in something of such scale in relatable time frames. Excellent description too!
Thanks!
Ja!
Imagine if we had pictures of this from 100s of years ago...it would be amazing to see those changes.
@Dan Collins Its true... but... if ten years of time is just a few pixels of motion (at this scale) ... then 100 years is just 20-30 pixels. It is significant...but still subtle!
I can't belive you can see the shockwaves produced by the pulsar so clearly, that's one of the most amazing astronomical things I've seen in ages. Thanks for this video. :)
Amazing, a 3 frame time laps spanning over 22 years. Just amazing to see these 3 frames in sequence.
i know right... dude could have found some more images from different years...
whats next, a 1 frame timelapse lmao
@Forget2BHuman wtf that's lame, I want a no frame timelapse
@Bink i want a -3 frames video 😫
@npc now we're entering relativistic slideshows
1000 years in the future and they will have a movie, can you imagine how glorious it would be to see a one thousand year explosion.
Yeah throw it in a A.I/physics simulation and watch it. Once enough data is collected, the simulations will be able to reproduce what is out there and predict it very accurately. Then whatever beings are there 10k years in the future and no extinction occurred, will need to decide if it's worth venturing out when the models predict what is shown. They won't be human so trying to project human curiosity on those beings won't work. That's why sci-fi makes me laugh sometimes.
Not really. In a 1000 years at 14fps your 'movie' will only be 10sec. The opening advertisements will go for 25 mins, the opening credits for 15mins, the scientific ecplanation 90mins, the movie 10 seconds, the closing comments for another 90mins and the closing credits for a further 15 mins.
Does that sound like a fun night out to you? I could stay at home and watch The Good, The Bad and The Ugly for the 400th time and be more enthralled.
@ThePaulv12 you must be fun at parties…
@Panse Pot i meen... he did make that into a complete joke, the whole movie having 25mins of opening ads and such lol, so what if it was a little sarcastic? saying 1000years of a supernova would be much to look at is worthy of sarcasm, 1000years may aswell be 100 or 10 when it comes to the scale of stuff like supernova, make it a million years and even then you wont see a complete event.. humans will never make a real time lapse video of even a decent chunk of a cosmic event. now after that, the first guy sounds great at parties dont he 🤣
a 1.5 second clip of the 4th frame at this pace lolol
Imagine how far that everything travelled in 20 years and the fact from here it can be noticed is proof of how great the distances are
Holy crap! I've never seen anything like this before, I'm speechless. Look at the shockwave from that pulsar, it's incredible! This really emphasises the scale of the stuff in our night sky. Thank you so much for sharing this!
I Never thought about this before, about watching Nebula photos through the years to watch them grow. This is so cool!
Honestly surprised not to see footage of the closeup of the pulsar. Seeing the whole nebula expand is of course fascinating, and it helps to understand that we know when the star went supernova (1054 CE) because of historical records of a temporary, large, bright star in the correct spot in the sky. But nothing in space footage has quite blown me away the way this timelapse closeup of the Crab Nebula's pulsar did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9DN3ODUY-4 Look at those ripples. Look at the jet streaming from the center towards the bottom-left at a large fraction of the speed of light. We've seen these sorts of things in classical CG renderings all the time, but there it all is, in the flesh. And of course that video is from 14 years ago, so we could probably piece together a longer one today.
I love this! You added some very interesting details. I've seen animations of star wobble, but no videos that show it in real telescope images like this. For some reason, this is much better even though it's just two images being toggled back and forth.
One of the most beautiful things human eyes have ever witnessed. Thank you for showing the Pulsar as well! I had no idea there was one there and it was cool to see the arcs. I have always wondered what kind of Star May have been left behind. Now I know 😀
Great video Adam! Nice to see science interweaved with beautiful captures. Thanks for putting this together.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Fantastic timelapse. Such a cool project.
Absolutely impressive!! Thanks Adam!
So amazing to see those distances that it has moved over in space, and the near star also, WOW! 🤩👍
True art! Fantastic. You've inspired me to make my own...whenever I get to the first step
Wonderful work Adam!! Really enjoy to see all the deatils described. Thanks so much for doing this.
Thanks Miguel!
Amazing! How much work would go into taking photographs of it more frequently like once a week for 10 years? That timelapse would look cool!
one a week would be pointless, once a month maybe still pointless, once a year, over multiple lifetimes, could be cool
This is amazing!!! Thank you for taking the time to create and share this.
Simply amazing! I also appreciate all of your hard works for our society.
Domo arigato gozaimasu
A remarkable result, and beautifully presented. Thank you for sharing!
I've seen time lapses like this before, but I've never seen one that also highlighted the motion of a nearby star. Wicked cool!
Thanks... yeah, proper motion is a thing- but unless you compare images with significant gaps of time... you wouldn't notice. Long ago I found a beautiful set of stars with high proper motion in the very famous field of M51!
This is awesome--great work, Adam. Can't wait to tune in again in 2030!
I am hope I am around to do it! It is hard to get your hands on the same equipment and site after so many years so you can make compatible imagery. With the Vera-Rubin observatory coming on line... the unprecedented animation of the Crab Nebula will be part of our future.
Fascinating Adam! No doubt if you measured the movement and extrapolated back you would arrive at a time somewhere around 1054 AD - an interesting confirmation of the supernova event of that year.
Actually you could do that even with my video and get close! I intend to do this for my "making of " video I am trying to put together.
Great job Adam. I was just searching for this info last week. I'm pretty sure I saw a similar exercise years ago using B&W images taken by the Mt. Wilson Observatory over a longer time frame. I've seen Adam Block's name on many photos over the years in my Sky and Telescope magazines and it's good to finally put a face to the name.
I remember seeing something similar.
I imagine that, for the gas filaments to have even the slightest apparent movement perceptible to our eyes, still considering they're time lapses of 2 decades, they must travel at enormous enormous speeds
So cool
Absolutely amazing! Thank you for this. I am in awe
Thanks for looking Ron.
This is wonderful video! I watched it several times and enjoyed it immensely.
Excellent!
Is there any idea of how fast the Crab Nebula is traveling (expanding)?
You definitely drifted 20 years in 3 minutes, like time relativity has been processed from the stars to my very monitor✨🤩 Space makes my problems go away, it is a brain massage, resting from an insensate world. My moment of happiness.
Thank you very much!! Impressive
Sounds like your monitor makes things go away
I think the same exact thing, space is peaceful
This is thoroughly amazing. Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you for watching!
This is breath taken, our universe will never stop to amaze us
Amazing! Thanks for sharing this, Adam
Glad you liked it!
Yes, God does good work.
The fact that I wasn't even born yet when the first picture was taken and yet it only perceivably (in our perspective) moved a little is so so so so so insane
Adam you really inspire me! Awesome work and teachings!
Thanks for checking out my work!
What only 3 frames in two decades can do! i've heard and understood everything you are explaining long before, but i have never been presented with the actual images taken from earth. Thank you so much for these uploads!
What i was wondering about is that the color of the 1st image is somewhat different from the color of the 2nd and 3rd image. Is this related to the telescopes used, or to the film used, or perhaps some other influence?
Fantastic video! Thank you for putting this together!
Thank you. It took quite a bit of effort...I appreciate the kudos.
Awesome set of shots! I've been looking at your shots for years, and had no idea you had a YT channel.
I feel so privileged and thankful for being able to witness so much knowledge. To have your job available in such an accessible fashion reminds me that the internet, with all the good and bad it brings, is still a revolution. Thank you!
Hey, that is so nice. There is so much change in such a short time span. Amazing!
this is absolutely beautiful!
Fun Fact:
We've never seen the ignition of a new star in the entire history of astronomy.
(we have telescopes powerful enough to see the ice-cold gas in interstellar nebulae but somehow we can't detect new nuclear fireballs???)
Instructions on how to find a new star:
1. Take a picture or use an old picture.
2. Wait any amount of time.
3. Take a second picture of the same patch of sky.
4. Compare the pictures,
if there is a new bright shiny dot in the second picture which appeared in the sky in the time between the first and the second picture, than, congratulations you are the first astronomer to find a star.
Good luck, we haven't been able to do it in the entire history of photographic astronomy. And there are no records from the ancient past of new stars being reported and the Persians, Greeks, and Chinese kept detailed records.
Because God made all the stars on day 4.
The wonders of the night sky and time-lapse photography! Wow, thank you!
Man, those shockwaves are so cool, utterly amazing!
This is amazing. Is it possible to see the shock waves moving in real time?
No, you wouldn't notice any movement over a short period of time. Keep in mind the first and last images of the 3 time lapse images are over 20 years apart. So, assuming you got to use a telescope that's capable of showing the shock waves, their real time movement would be imperceptible. There are other "time lapse" images of the Crab Nebula on the web.
This is one of the coolest astro videos i've ever seen. absolutley insane i love it! inspiring another project, except this is a lifetime project.
Wow, thank you!
there are better timelapse photos out there.
like the ones that show ripples of light passing through galaxies... those are cool, cuz you know, more then 3 images lmao
you know Hubble data is publicly available, right? you might be able to get a better time lapse for the same time period (more frames) smoother animation
@Better & Better But it doesn't go far enough back in time. AND...the resolution of HST is actually too much to make a comparative animation by including the frame. So yes, I know...but it doesn't work!
Plus way cooler to take your own shots ^^. Funny idea that hst has too* high resolution
Absolutely brilliant! Thanks for sharing.
Can't wait to see the next 3 frames!
I'd better live another 2000 years to watch this unfold!
Chuck's Astrophotography - 2021-12-26
This is AMAZING!
Adam Block - 2021-12-29
thank yoU!
Ryan Patridge - 2021-12-30
Really brings the cosmos to life in a way very rarely seen, it's beautiful. I love how the magnetic shockwaves from the pulsar can be seen traveling away from the star, on more than one side. One of my favorite astronomical renderings ever.
Don Goddard - 2021-12-31
I was going to send you the link to this, but you've already seen it. LOL
Chrstfer - 2022-01-05
@Adam Block no, dude, thank YOU.