Bad Astronomy

Predators and Prey, Dragons and Dark Skies

still from the Borrego Springs video
Giant metal arthropods battle it out for supremacy of the Universe.

Photo by Gavin Heffernan, from the video

A while back, I posted a lovely time-lapse video by Gavin Heffernan called Death Valley Dreamlapse. He just finished another interesting video, this time filmed in Borrego Springs, California (a designated Dark Skies site). It features large metal sculptures of animals, and the stars wheeling above them. I have to say, this may be the most unusual time-lapse video I’ve posted yet.

Yegads. The dragon is cool, but I think I have to go with the scorpion and grasshopper as my favorite.

The description for the video is interesting; the sculptures were created by sculptor Ricardo Breceda, and the land on which they sit owned by the late Dennis Avery, who made sure that land would be open for people to use and enjoy. This sounds like yet another place I must visit someday. That list is growing very, very long.

[Correction (Aug. 5, 2013 at 16:00 UTC): I originally wrote that Dennis Avery was the sculptor, but he was the philanthropist who owned the land.]