Yosemite National Park and the Tarantula Nebula

Two quick videos of two beautifully and seemingly non-interconnected things, except that they're both part of our Universe: a time lapse video of Yosemite National Park, and an open star cluster in the nearby Tarantula Nebula.

Time Lapse of Yosemite

Click on the link above to see a beautiful presentation of the U-Shaped valley 3 hours east by car of San Francisco that is Yosemite national Park, one of the most gorgeous places in America, and the world. Certainly the most beautiful place I have witnessed, but I haven't been to The grand canyon nor Hawaii. Most valleys in cross section would resemble the letter "V", but Yosemite's is cross would resemble a block "U". Very flat bottom, and large cliffs rising straight up from the valley floor with some of America's tallest waterfalls.

For more explanation, see Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy weblog here.



Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo.


TARANTULA CLUSTER

I totally LOVE this short video which zeros in on the nearby Tarantula Nebula. It begins with a large view of our galazy, then homes in. For the reason this was in the news, you can read about the details in at Live Science here.