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Gemini

After nearly 1.5 years of arrangements, I finally managed to film inside-the-dome timelapse of the Gemini telescope propagating its adaptive optics laser. This was one of the most painful shoots that I've ever done--I lost count of the number of times we chose a date and then failed to submit paperwork on time, the Office of Mauna Kea Management failed to process the paperwork in time, the paperwork went through but the weather was bad, or everything else was ok but the laser was canceled at the last minute.

 

During this night, the weather was flawlessly perfect and the laser was scheduled to operate the entire night. However, after just an hour of propagation, there was a fatal error and it was canceled for the rest of the night.

 

I filmed timelapse video on three cameras, and this is one of the stills from a Sony A7s (thanks, Raiatea!) + my Rokinon 12mm f/2.8 fisheye. Many, many thanks to Joy Pollard at Gemini for dealing with the paperwork, arranging for me to put cameras in crazy locations, and not giving up after the first half-dozen reschedules!

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Uploaded on October 3, 2016
Taken on September 26, 2016