The Astrum

This is a short trailer of the 30+ minutes of timelapse I shot in 2020 at locations in South Dakota, Wyoming and Arizona. It was shot with Nikon D850 cameras in still mode and rendered at 8K resolution. My past features have aired on the DirecTV 4K channel, a few are on Stingray Naturescape on Youtube.

The Astrum feature may be available as a download in the future.

:30-:49 is Comet Neowise

Music “The Trailer” by Jeffrey Peterson. Licensed through Audiojungle.com 8K footage available for licensing.

SpaceX Starlink satellites are visible in parking orbit right after the Feb 17, 2020 launch in several of the shots. They look like scattered stars that aren’t moving across the sky. Normally satellites will streak across the sky in timelapse, Starlink do too once they are in operational orbit.

1:40 to the left of the saguaro

2:27 to the left of cactus.

2:43 lower left 1/4 of the frame

Dakotalapse 8K Timelapse

Badlands Night Sky Workshops – Join me this June in the Badlands of SD and learn how to shoot stills and astro timelapse.

Dakotalapse 8K is a compilation of timelapse I have shot in the last few years. It was shot in South Dakota and Wyoming. and is the first footage I have posted online in 8K.

Available in 8K resolution for licensing

The timelapse was shot with Sony AR7II, Canon 5DSR and Nikon D810. The D810 isn’t quite 8K native, but I think those shots still turned out better than the 5DSR night shots, which are much larger stills.

Photography and Editing – Randy Halverson
Produced by Randy Halverson – Dakotalapse, LLC
Opening Dakotalapse graphics – Luke Arens
Music Epic Cinematic by Eric Dillen, licensed through Audiojungle.net

Thanks to Cheyenne Camping Center for the great deals on the travel trailers you see in a few of the shots.
http://www.cheyennecampingcenter.com

Contact for licensing footage, shooting rates or anything else.
Randy Halverson
dakotalapse@gmail.com

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Field Of View – 4K UHD Timelapse

 

2016 Badlands Night Sky Workshops Join me this summer in the Badlands of SD and learn how to shoot stills and timelapse at night.

Field Of View is a compilation of timelapse I have shot in the last year. The first shot of the sunset supercell was done on July 23, 2015. That storm dropped multiple Tornadoes in eastern South Dakota, I was shooting it from central SD.  Other locations in the sequences are Aurora in central, western South Dakota and the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. The Red Desert in Wyoming, Bandlands and Buffalo Gap National Grasslands area of South Dakota. Bighorn and Teton Mountain areas in Wyoming.

You can see the rest of the 100+ full length sequences, on the 30+ minute “Field Of View” feature, which you can download here or the link below. Music on the feature is by Simon Wilkinson at http://www.thebluemask.com

Available in 4K UHD, up to 4096 X 2304, for licensing.

 

Boars Tusk, Wyoming timelapse
Boars Tusk, Wyoming

Photography and Editing – Randy Halverson
Produced by Randy Halverson – Dakotalapse, LLC
Opening Dakotalapse graphics – Luke Arens
Music – “Uplifting” by Nick Perrin – licensed from Audiojungle

Flagstaff Micro Lite Camper while shooting timelapse in Wyoming
Flagstaff Micro Lite Camper and Aurora

Sponsors:
Cheyenne Camping Center – They gave me a great deal on a Flagstaff Micro Lite camper, which worked great while shooting timelapse in remote areas. They also have a great service department.

 

Camera Gear Used
Nikon D810
Sony AR7II
Canon 5D Mark III’s
Canon 6D

Lenses
2 Nikon 14-24
Rokinon 35
Zeiss 21
Sigma 15mm Fisheye
Canon 70-300

Contact for licensing footage, shooting rates or anything else.
Randy Halverson
dakotalapse@gmail.com

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Aurora and Meteor with persistent train

November 7th, 2015 near Rapid City, South Dakota. I caught the meteor with several cameras that were shooting timelapse of the Aurora. The persistent train lasted about 15 minutes in real time. The first shot is a cropped view from one of the cameras, the meteor is in the upper right on the wide shots and goes through Ursa Major.

Music by Simon Wilkinson http://www.thebluemask.com

Meteor with persistent train
Meteor with persistent train

Meteor with persistent train
Meteor

Persistent Train
Persistent Train

Persistent Train
Persistent Train

 

Trails End UHD 4K Time Lapse

Trails End is a compilation of some of my favorite timelapse shots from 2014, with a few Aurora shots from early this year. On many of the locations, I used my Palomino SS-1251 truck camper from Cheyenne Camper Center, often ending up near the end of some remote trail.  It was shot in Wyoming, Utah and South Dakota. You can see the rest of the 100+ full length sequences, on the 30+ minute “Trails End” feature, which you can download here or the link below. Available in 4K UHD, up to 4096 X 2304, for licensing. 2016 Badlands Night Sky Workshop schedule

 

 

 

Canyonlands Utah Sunset
Canyonlands Utah Sunset

 

Some events to watch for:

The slower moving light streaks are airplanes, the fast ones are satellites. I also caught many meteors which are only 1 frame or 1/24th of a second on the timelapse.
:56 Bolide Meteor
1:01 Aurora at Devils Tower and throughout video
1:33 Two Bolide Meteors
Meteors With Persistent Trains 2:29 very fast and short persistent train to right of the Milky Way, a better one at 3:20
2:43 Final Boost Stage of GSSAP and ANGELS satellites
 2:55 Owl sitting in tree
3:00 Pink Aurora in the sand dunes of Wyoming’s Red Desert
3:14 Sprites and Gravity Waves

 

South Dakota Aurora
South Dakota Aurora

 

Photography and Editing – Randy Halverson
Production Assistant – River Halverson
Opening Title graphics – Luke Arens
Music – “The Last Stand” licensed from Audiojungle
Title and Credit Music – Simon Wilkinson at TheBlueMask.com

Palomino Truck Camper
Palomino Truck Camper

Sponsors:
Cheyenne Camping Center – They gave me a great deal on a Palomino Palomino SS-1251 camper which worked great, they also have a great service department.

Camera Gear Used

2 Canon 5D Mark III’s
1 Canon 6D
Nikon D810

Lenses
Nikon 14-24
Rokinon 35
Canon 16-35
Zeiss 21
Sigma 15mm Fisheye
Sigma 8mm Fisheye
Canon 200mm
Canon 70-300

Contact for licensing footage, shooting rates or anything else.
Randy Halverson
dakotalapse@gmail.com

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Instagram instagram.com/dakotalapse 

Twitter twitter.com/dakotalapse

Final Boost Stage – 4K UHD

satellite launch final burn stage

 

Cropped view of satellite and stage burn.
Cropped view of satellite and burn stage.

Final Boost Stage on Youtube. Be sure to read description and click HD or UHD and watch full screen.

On July 28th, 2014, I was set up to shoot the Milky Way near Kennebec, South Dakota.  I was shooting a Canon 5D Mark III with a Nikon 14-24 lens on an eMotimo TB3 mounted on a Dynamic Perception Stage Zero Dolly. I had looked through some of the stills but didn’t notice anything unusual. In December 2014 I was editing timelapse that had been shot during the year. When I got to the July 28th sequence I noticed something different on it. At first I thought it was another meteor with persistent train, but I had missed the meteor in between exposures. I had already caught several meteor with persistent trains on timelapse last year, so I was watching for them. Then I looked closer and noticed the flash was dimming and getting brighter. Also, when I zoomed in I could see a satellite or object right before the first flash. I searched and found the the GSSAP and ANGELS satellites had launched on July 28th at 7:28 EDT.

I emailed Mark “Indy” Kochte who works on the Mercury MESSENGER program. He showed it to his colleagues Nick Pinkine and James Hudson (Solar Probe Pluse Mission Ops Manager and MESSENGER Mission Analyst) and they agreed that it was the AFRL ANGELS satellite burning it’s final boost stage.

The first flash you see on the timelapse happened at 1:09am July 29th (camera time) so that also seems to match up with the timing for the final burn the article mentions. You will also see many other satellites moving through the cropped timelapse, there are also some geostationary ones.

Camera Settings: 30 second exposure with 3 second interval, ISO 6400, F2.8

Music by Simon Wilkinson at thebluemask.com

 

 

Sprites, Gravity Waves, Airglow and Aurora

 

 

 

 

 

On August 20th, 2014 I timelapsed a storm over central South Dakota with multiple cameras. I left for Wyoming without looking at most of the frames. I saw a post by Tom Warner about Sprites he caught on the same storm. Sprites are large scale electrical discharges that occur high above clouds.

When I got back I went through the frames and found 7 with Sprites in them. I didn’t post 2 of them because they are very faint. The Sprites are only 1 frame each, so they will be a quick flash of red near the right side above the storm. The green Airglow is rippled by Gravity Waves, (gravity waves are not the same as gravitational waves) some faint Aurora moves in towards the end of the sequences, on the right side before the clouds cover it up. Thanks to Tom Warner and Dr. Walter Lyons for helping me identify Gravity Waves in my shots. Dr. Lyons also shared a link that will help identify which storms may have Sprites. Look for a large red cross on the map.

See the timelapse of the storm below, and more images in the gallery.

Sprites, Gravity Waves and Airglow from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.

Music By Simon Wilkinson

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Sprites are the red discharges above the storm on the right side. The gravity waves are the ripples you see in the airglow.

Sprite with Airglow and Gravity Waves over South Dakota
Sprite with Airglow and Gravity Waves over South Dakota

 

Sprite with Airglow and Gravity Waves over South Dakota
Sprite with Airglow and Gravity Waves over South Dakota

 

_____________________________________________________________________

Gallery of Sprites and Gravity Waves – Click to enlarge.

 

 

Meteor or Satellite?

 

 

 

These 2 timelapse frames are from my latest timelapse “Huelux”. Go to 3:20 in the video to see the timelapse.

A bright Satellite flash or Iridium flare, can sometimes look like a meteor in a long exposure star photo. If you are shooting timelapse, it is easy to distinguish between a meteor or satellite flash in the frames. Most meteors enter the atmosphere at 25,000 mph or faster, and burn up relatively fast at a much lower altitude than satellites.

If you are shooting a 30 second exposure with a 3 second interval, the meteor would have to be burning up for at least 34 seconds for it to show up in 2 consecutive frames. I have caught dozens of meteors in timelapse frames and seen many with my own eyes. The longest I have seen with my own eyes has lasted maybe 3 seconds. Satellites are moving much slower than meteors and are much higher, so they take longer to travel across the sky. So they will always be visible, even a faint trail, in 2 or more frames, if they are within the frame. Satellites are an important part of our exploration of space and they are put together with incredibly detailed technology and equipment like transmitters, solar panels, LVDT’s (you can look here for more information on this), to name a few, so to see one traveling across the sky at night is a sight to behold and we can only hope that it is not falling or breaking down.

In these two consecutive frames, you will see the bolide Meteor in the lower center, and a Satellite in the upper left, and another one to the right of the Milky Way core. This was 25 second exposures with a 3 second interval between the two photos. Click image to enlarge.

Meteor and Satellites
Meteor and Satellites

The Meteor is gone from the following frame, because it was travelling so fast and burned up, both satellites still have a trail. I think it also missed a bright part of the flare on the upper left Satellite, during the 3 second interval between shots. Some satellites will show up in 5 or more frames and will take minutes to cross the sky. Click image to enlarge.

Satellite trails
Satellite trails

Huelux

 

Storm over Farm time lapse frame 4K
Storm over Farm

 

Huelux from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.

Huelux is also on Youtube below, in 4K Ultra HD resolution.



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I shot Huelux from April-November 2013 in South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah. The weather in 2013 made it difficult for me to get some of the shots I wanted. There were many times I planned to shoot the Milky Way or Aurora, and the clouds would roll in. But that also allowed me to get more night storm timelapse than I have any other year. I was in Utah for 6 nights, it was clear only one night, it was also 95F at midnight that night. So I couldn’t shoot as high of an ISO as I wanted because of noise, but I still pulled off a few good shots in Zion Canyon.The weather was much the same while I was in Wyoming, it was cloudy 2/3 of the nights I was there. But I did get some of my best Milky Way shots of the year in Wyoming, see 1:45-2:05 in the video. The clouds did make for some good sunrise and sunset shots.

On the Milky Way shots you will see a lot of slow and fast moving satellites, a few meteors and planes. The meteors are hard to see in timelapse, but you may see a quick flash because they only last one frame. If you see a light moving across the sky, it is either an airplane or satellite, not a meteor.

Some of the Aurora I shot were unexpected with no advanced notice. Several nights I was setting up Milky Way shots, when I noticed the glow in the sky to the north. In one case an hour before I got any Aurora notification on my phone. The storm shot at 2:57 has Aurora behind it, which was quickly covered up by the storm. The low Aurora on the horizon were often yellow, while closer (higher in the sky) Aurora were green. If I adjusted the yellow Aurora on the horizon green, it threw the rest of the colors way off.

Aurora behind a buidling storm. Frame from Huelux timelapse
Aurora behind a building storm.

I came up with the title Huelux, which comes from hue (a color property), and lux which is latin for light. Some of the Aurora and Milky Way were difficult to color correct, so I spent a lot of time with the hue settings, white balance, etc. during the month and a half edit.

The end credit backgrounds are 10 second timelapse exposures of Andromeda Galaxy and Orion shot with a 200mm lens on an Ioptron Skytracker. You will see some satellites moving through the sequences.

Photography and Editing – Randy Halverson
Production Assistant – River Halverson
Music by Peter Nanasi – peternanasi.com
Buy the soundtrack to Huelux here.

Dakotalapse opening title – Luke Arens

Camera Gear Used

2 Canon 5D Mark III’s
1 Canon 6D

Lenses
Nikon 14-24 with Novoflex adapter
Rokinon 25 and 35
Canon 16-35
Zeiss 21
Sigma 15mm Fisheye
Canon 200mm
Canon 70-300

Available in 4K Ultra HD for licensing, in 10 and 35 minute features.

Contact for licensing footage, shooting rates or anything else.
Randy Halverson
dakotalapse@gmail.com

Follow:
Facebook facebook.com/dakotalapse
Twitter twitter.com/dakotalapse

Still Photos Below, click show picture list to enlarge.

 

 

eMotimo TB3 Motion Control

eMotimo TB3

eMotimo TB3 video music by Simon Wilkinson

In 2012 I had been looking for a new pan/tilt solution to replace the buggy Merlin or Orion head I had been using. I spoke to the creator of the eMotimo TB3 Brian Burling about the TB3, and it sounded like what I was looking for. In December 2012 I received a TB3 Orange and I was impressed with it right away.  I didn’t do any real shoots with it for a few months. Then I packed it with me when I went to Australia, a few months later, and it performed flawlessly after traveling more than 11,000 miles (one way) to Western Australia. The small size of the unit is great for travel and it will fit in a camera bag easily. My camera bags were full of cameras and lenses, so it had to go in another larger bag with tripods and Dynamic Perception dollies. So it rode in the belly of the planes throughout the flights.

I liked the TB3 so much, when I got back from Australia I ordered a TB3 Black, which has a few more features than the TB3 Orange. In the Spring-Fall of 2013 I used both of them on dozens of shots. The setup is extremely simple and it can be set up in minutes. It takes me longer to frame the shot than it does to set up the TB3. Setting up a 2 axis move with a TB3 on a tripod, will take 5 minutes or less. You plug the power in, set the start and stop points, set the interval, move duration, static time and ramp if needed.

In the fall of 2013 I also upgraded my TB3 Orange, so it now it has the same features as the TB3 Black. You see my upgraded Orange TB3 in the video above.

For 3 axis moves, I also use the TB3’s on my Dynamic Perception Stage Zero dollies. For that, you will need to get a geared stepper motor from eMotimo. Setup is the same, except now you also move the dolly from end to end when setting the start and stop points in the setup menu. It will take a few more minutes to setup with a dolly, only because it takes a few minutes to move the dolly from one end to the other, then back to start it. I haven’t had any major issues with the TB3’s, only a few minor ones, and the company was quick to get them fixed, or send replacement parts.

The playback of the timelapse I have shot on the TB3, or a combination of Stage Zero Dolly and TB3, have all been smooth. It will add a new range of shots, to your setups.

If you are looking for portable, smooth and easy to set up motion control for timelapse, I highly recommend the eMotimo TB3’s!

Below – Photos of the TB3’s – You may see gaff tape on the TB3’s, I cover the lcd’s and led’s for night shots, and I usually leave it on them so they are ready.

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