Announcement

ESOcast 65: The Chilean Sky in Ultra High Definition

30 May 2014

In March and April 2014, ESO’s videographer Herbert Zodet and three ESO Photo Ambassadors: Yuri Beletsky, Christoph Malin and Babak Tafreshi embarked on the ESO Ultra HD Expedition. Their goal was to capture footage at ESO’s three observing sites in Chile using state-of-the-art Ultra HD tools [1]. This ESOcast tells their story and shows some of the spectacular results.

First the team visited ESO’s Paranal Observatory, home to the Very Large Telescope array (VLT) — ESO’s flagship facility. They then drove to ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array — a huge new facility dedicated to studying the cool Universe. Finally, the team headed to La Silla, ESO’s first observatory. The almost perfect atmospheric conditions in each of the sites provided crystal-clear views of the night sky.

The expedition team collected a wide range of content including time-lapses, stills and panoramas in Ultra HD quality that can now be demonstrated in some of their first results — bringing the Universe closer than ever before.

More episodes of the ESOcast are also available.

Find out how to view and contribute subtitles for the ESOcast in multiple languages.

Notes

[1] The expedition’s equipment included: Vixen Optics Polarie Star Tracker, Canon® EOS-1D C camera, Stage One Dolly and eMotimo TB3 3-axis motion control camera robot, Angelbird SSD2go, LRTimelapse software. Peli™ Cases, 4K PC workstations from Magic Multi Media, Novoflex QuadroPod system, Intecro batteries and Granite Bay Software.

More Information

The ESOcast is a video podcast series dedicated to bringing you the latest news and research from ESO — the European Southern Observatory. Subscribe to our video podcast now to keep up with the latest news from ESO – available via iTunes in HD and SD. The ESOcast is also available on YouTube, Vimeo and is offered for download in several formats including HD.

You can follow the ESO Ultra HD Expedition on Twitter @ESO and under the hashtag #ESOultraHD

The ESO Ultra HD Expedition was supported by the following technology partners: Canon, Kids of All Ages, Novoflex, Angelbird, Sharp, Vixen, eMotimo, Peli, Magic Multi Media, LRTimelapse, Intecro and Granite Bay Software. Information on the expedition’s technology partners can be found here.