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A Movie From Before Movies Were Invented

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the break-out-the-huey-lewis dept.

Alien54 writes "Two astronomers at the Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton near San Jose have discovered a set of 147 plates taken of the transit of Venus in 1882. They've assembled them into a Quicktime movie! Think about it. This is a movie from before movies were invented. As a point of comparison, Edison didn't get his films going until the 1890s. This is just around the time when Muybridge was doing his work on the motion of horses and people."

5 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. direct links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    640 x 480 pixels (4.0 megabytes)
    320 x 240 pixels (1.2 megabytes)

  2. Muybridge by PollGuy · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is just around the time when Muybridge was doing his work on the motion of horses and people.

    For those who don't know this reference, it is to Eadweard Muybridge, an American immigrant from Britain who created created the first prototypical movie in the 1870, well before Edison or the Lumiere brothers, by having multiple cameras expose in sequence. He was asked to settle a bet on whether all four of a galloping horse's feet are ever all off the ground at the same time.

  3. /.ed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Reanimating the 1882 Transit of Venus
    By Anthony Misch


    In late 1882, Massachusetts astronomer David Peck Todd traveled to California to photograph the transit of Venus from the summit of Mount Hamilton, where a solar photographic telescope made by the renowned optical firm Alvan Clark & Sons waited among the stacks of bricks and timbers from which Lick Observatory was rising. As the transit unfolded on December 6th, Todd obtained a superb series of plates under perfect skies. His 147 glass negatives were carefully stored in the mountain vault, but as astronomers turned to other techniques for determining the scale of the solar system (see "The Transit of Venus: Tales from the 19th Century," by William Sheehan, Sky & Telescope: May 2004, page 32), the plates lay untouched and were eventually forgotten.

    Fast-forward 120 years. Spurred by a reference in one of Todd's letters in Lick's Mary Lea Shane Archives, Bill Sheehan and I found all 147 negatives, still in good condition, at the observatory. To our knowledge, this collection of photos constitutes the most complete surviving record of a historical transit of Venus.

    As we looked at Todd's extensive sequence of images, we realized we could turn them into a movie. A similar thought may have occurred to Todd himself, for a number of his contemporaries were already making the first forays into chronophotography -- the recording of sequential motion and the forerunner of cinematography. Indeed, Pierre Jules Janssen invented his famous photographic revolver to capture the 1874 transit of Venus.

    Digital imaging technology made reanimating Todd's transit images a comparatively simple undertaking. The result, which premiered at the International Astronomical Union's general assembly in Sydney in July 2003, shows Venus's silhouette flickering strangely as it marches across the Sun's face. It's the shadow-show of an astronomical event that occurred when Queen Victoria sat on the throne of Great Britain and Chester Arthur was president of the United States -- a moving record of an event seen by no one now living, and a preview of what millions will see for the first time on June 8, 2004.

    Figures:
    http://skyandtelescope.com/mm_images/6469.jpg
    Amherst College astronomer David Peck Todd (1855-1939). Courtesy the Mary Lea Shane Archives of Lick Observatory / University of California, Santa Cruz.

    http://skyandtelescope.com/mm_images/6465.jpg
    The December 6, 1882, transit of Venus was already under way when the Sun rose over Lick Observatory in California and David Peck Todd began photographing the planet's march across the solar disk. Todd's 147 surviving photos, of which these are numbered 11, 88, and 151 (left to right), have been turned into a movie. You can download QuickTime versions in two sizes: 640 x 480 pixels (4.0 megabytes) or 320 x 240 pixels (1.2 megabytes). © 2003 University of California Observatories / Lick Observatory.


    Movies:
    640x480 (4.0MB)
    320x240 (1.2MB)

  4. Movie mirror by markclong · · Score: 5, Informative

    320 1.2 meg movie
    640 4 meg movie

    Enjoy

  5. Lick Observatory and Mount Hamilton by bug506 · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you ever visit the Lick Observatory, they have pictures that show how the tiny town of San Jose that existed when the Observatory was built has grown so large. Of course, this causes problems with light pollution. Part of their solution was an agreement with the city in 1980 to use low-pressure sodium lights that the observatory can more easily filter out.

    http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/public/lighting/Coop eration2.html

    Everyone who visits me notices that the lights in San Jose are "different" and "weird;" it took visiting the Observatory to find out why.

    By the way, if you want to visit the Lick and look through the telescopes, they have summer tours that I recommend. Not only do you get to look through the telescopes and learn a lot about astronomy and the history of the Observatory, there are amazing (and even romantic) night-time views of the Bay Area. (They normally discourage night-time visits because the car headlights interfere with the telescopes.) There's a lottery for it because it is so popular:

    http://www.ucolick.org/public/sumvispro.html

    Joey