The Observatory

This fine video has been created by Peter Nguyen, a physics and astronomy undergraduate in his final semester.

He enjoys photography and is currently enroled in the graduate observational techniques course taught by Dr. Telesco, which provides him with plenty of time out at the Department’s Rosemary Hill Observatory (RHO).

It was there that he shot “The Observatory” over the past month. “A lot of sleepless and sometimes chilly nights went into making this. And as you can see from the clouds, not much useful observing!” Peter says. Early in the video, Nguyen captures a lightning storm in the distance, which luckily stayed far enough away from RHO to do some observing this night.

Peter also had some help the last few nights. Stefan O’Dougherty, who graduated from UF Astronomy in May, visited to help, and contributed the motion shots using his telescope mount. The last time these two students paired up, a NASA Astronomy Picture of theDay was the result. Whatever happens with this video, Peter is still happy, “I shoot these for fun … I’m glad RHO has such dark skies, relatively. And I’m quite pleased with how beautifully all the time-lapes came together!”