Beautiful Timelapse of the Skies Over Ancient Structures Throughout the American Southwest

Filmmakers Harun Mehmedinovic and Gavin Heffernan of Sun Chaser Pictures have created “Ancestral Nights”, a gorgeous timelapse tour of “Dark Sky” parks across the southern United States. Each location boasts an ancient structure through which the sky can be seen. The film endeavors to imagine how these same skies appeared to early settlers of the region.

This video journeys to National Park Service sites from California, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico, many of whom give us a glimpse of how the night sky may have appeared to the ancient inhabitants of those lands. Many of these places were named International Dark-Sky Parks by the International Dark-Sky Association, partly due to their remote locations, and partly due to the hard work by the National Park Service to preserve the quality of the night skies through lighting retrofits and educational programs about the night sky heritage and astronomy.

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips