The Northern Lights first filmed in 3D

On the New Scientist website they posted a three-minute video about British physicists who for the first time in the world made a three-dimensional shooting of the northern lights (there are also fragments of video that you actually need to watch in stereo glasses). The Northern Lights in this film is like a canvas of green silk that flutters in the wind (photos can be viewed here ).



The natural phenomenon was removed from two points located at a distance of 32 km from each other and ideally clearly calibrated by the stars. Although in theory the creation of such a stereo pair looks simple, but in practice, researchers are faced with many technical problems. They needed to pick up equipment that can work for a long time at a temperature of almost -40 degrees Celsius and providing acceptable video quality in almost complete darkness.
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Funding for the project was provided by research organizations in the UK and Finland, as well as Apple.

Researchers had to work in the Arctic Circle under terrible conditions.



At this temperature, not only the equipment, but also the people themselves began to fail. According to the project participants, already at -30, attention concentration and general well-being fall sharply.



Due to the very low frame rate, it took four months to shoot a few minutes of footage. Then the scientists combined the result, getting a real stereo pair.



All work on making the film lasted for several years.

Interestingly, human eyes themselves are unable to provide a stereo image at such distances (6 cm between the eyes is negligible to create a stereo pair at a distance of hundreds of kilometers). That is, until now no one has ever seen the northern lights in 3D with their own eyes.