Deddy Dayag used two super powerful telescopes to film the sun’s surface over several hours in order to create mesmerizing time lapse videos. (Image credit: Deddy Dayag / SWNS)
ISRAEL — Spectacular time-lapse images shot by an Israeli astrophotographer offer a fantastic look at flames flickering along the surface of the sun.
Deddy Dayag, 39, used two super powerful telescopes to film the sun’s surface over several hours in order to create mesmerizing time-lapse videos. He uses a 152mm achromat refractor telescope, a 200mm Schmidt Cassegrain telescope, and an h-alpha 0.5 angstrom h-alpha filter on a tracking mount, to capture sights impossible to see with the naked eye.
“I capture the sun because it is the most interesting and fascinating object that is near enough to explore from Earth. The sun, which is a star like all other stars in the universe, is constantly changing, and we as humans living out our lives don’t even notice it. Most of the time we just think of it as a bright light in the sky,” Dayag explains in an interview per South West News Service. “A few seconds of watching those videos and your entire view of it, changes.”
Dayag says even as a seasoned astrophotographer, he still couldn’t believe the beauty that his telescopes captured.
“When I reviewed the footage for the first time I was blown away! Literally shouted with excitement. And now, after almost two years of imaging the sun, I can still say that I get excited every-time I aim my telescope up there, because each time you don’t really know what to expect, each time is a surprise,” he says.
As for what Dayag wants viewers of his latest video to take away from it?
“I hope people will watch those videos and understand how small we are compared to our star. Our sun (named Sol) holds 99.8% of the entire solar systems mass,” he says. “We are a grain of dust.”
Dayag’s work has been featured on The Weather Channel and Astronomy Magazine.
South West News Service writer Jamie Smith contributed to this report.
