Fly around Saturn in gorgeous short film
"Around Saturn" gives a stunning look at out solar system's sixth planet, made entirely from images taken by Cassini in the style of early silent films.
Cassini has been in orbit around Saturn since 2004, surveying the planet, its rings, and its satellites. Currently, it sends back to Earth more than 60 raw photos a day of Saturn in all of its moods, as well as its satellites, and NASA has made these images freely available for public use.
Fabio Di Donato, an Italian IT consultant who likes to make videos in his spare time, has made use of this. He collated more than 200,000 of the Cassini photos taken between 2004 and 2012, processed them from raw to PNG, and edited them together to create a film set to Shostakovich's Suite for Variety Orchestra: Waltz 2 as played by the Armonie Symphony Orchestra.
"The video is dedicated to the memory of Margherita Hack, astrophysicist and popular science writer," Di Donato wrote. "She made me love the stars." Hack passed away on June 29 at the age of 91.
Saturn's rings feature heavily in the film "Around Saturn," along with several of its 62 moons, as well as the smaller "moonlets" that inhabit its rings. Watching the interplay of light and shadow across the planet and its satellites is just breathtaking.
Viewers should be warned that the video may not be suitable for those with photosensitive epilepsy.
(Source: Crave Australia)