1,000,000,000,000 Frames/Second Photography

[rmuhlack]

Imagine a camera capable of photographing light *in motion*, a camera that can see around corners, a camera that can observe the effects of relativity as predicted by Einstein.

Well imagine no longer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoHeWgLvlXI

(apologies if this has already been linked to :) )

[blink138]

added to my favourites some time ago....... but wow! have to watch it every few weeks
pat

[Astro_Bot]

That is amazing. A relativistic camera!

[MrB]

I had a feeling this 'camera' recorded many frames which were used to build a composite, the video confirmed that.
Kinda limits it to static objects, but it is still very very cool.
It just occured to me that the events this camera records, were well over by the time it recorded them ;)
It is all relative ofcourse.

An interesting aside; I just finished reading the latest National Geographic a few hours ago which has a short article about Tim Samaras, who is photographing lightning with high speed camera's.
I am fascinated by lightning so it was the first article I flicked to. I was surprised to read Tim's name as I have been watching him chase tornado's for years on Discovery's 'Storm Chasers' which documented a number of tornado hunting teams. I had no idea he had shifted his focus.

For filming lightning, Tim uses two 'plain' 10,000 frame per second camera's and another he calls the 'Kahuna' which is a camera that was used to film nuclear explosions in the early 60's at 1,000,000 frames per second.
Tim has modified the camera with 82 digital sensors that were apparently designed for astrophotography.
The article(minus photo's) can be read here: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/chasing-lightning/johnson-text

Here is one of Tim's video's at 10,000 frames/sec http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyUsjsJ-E0c
Sadly according to the article, Tim has yet to capture lightning at 1,000,000 frames/sec

[ourkind]

No need to mirror polish those black shoes anymore :P

On a serious note, that was the coolest thing I've seen since the transit of Venus!

Thanks for sharing :thumbsup: