Photographer Jason Kurt published a unique video made up of about two thousand images of the recent annular solar eclipse. This video shows a celestial event with incredible detail and impressive effects.
Jason Kurt had to purchase a very expensive and powerful computer to process such a large amount of data to create this 8K video. On October 14, the photographer went to the southeast of Utah with 200-kilogram equipment, where he took more than 200 thousand photographs. But his video has been questioned by skeptics.
How the solar eclipse was photographed in 8K
For this project, Kurt had to process more than 4 TB of data and use a new 24-core workstation with 192 gigabytes of RAM. He noted that this level of detail for an annular solar eclipse was achieved for the first time.
Kurt used a special hydrogen alpha solar telescope and a monochrome camera, which allowed him to capture the solar chromosphere with high resolution. The monochrome camera increased the sensitivity to light, but the colors were then added artificially during processing. The photographer explained that his goal was not just to capture the solar eclipse, but also to show the chromosphere of the Sun and solar prominences in high resolution.
The astro enthusiast added that creating a video with such detail was a big challenge, but he was sure it was possible. He even decided to show the movement of the Sun’s surface and solar flares at the same time, which required a lot of experiments with equipment.
It is worth noting that Kurt made a lot of efforts to stabilize the solar center in the pictures. The movement of the Sun and Moon required constant corrections due to their displacement, but the photographer managed to align this during editing so that the image looked perfectly centered. He posted the first results on his Instagram page.
Criticism of the author of the video
Despite the titanic work, some commentators tried to recognize this video as fake because of the visual immobility of the Sun, like it was artificially drawn. But Kurt noted that his video clearly showed the movement of other objects on the solar surface. He also indicated that he uploaded a full-size, 8K video to YouTube. The movement of the Sun is more noticeable on it, but some people continue to doubt the veracity of the video.
Despite the criticism, Kurt noted the positive reaction of many viewers, and he rejoices in the recognition of his hard work. He believes that astrophotography is a difficult task, and this reaction indicates that his efforts have not been in vain.
At first, the astrophotographer struggled with conspiracy theories about the falsity of his work. But then he decided not to argue with the skeptics if they couldn’t see the clear evidence with their own eyes and didn’t take into account comments from other viewers.
Earlier, we reported on how an astrophotographer published an epic 164-megapixel portrait of the Sun.
According to petapixel.com
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