Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

Cosmos is definitely one of my favorite shows right now. It's not only educational, but also entertaining and just plain cool. The effects that are used in this show are captivating and extremely impressive.

Neil deGrasse Tyson floats through space as he explains many of our universe's phenomena. In the first episode, there's a really cool representation of how old our universe is in which major events in the past few billion years are squeezed into one calendar year. Neil walks around on the big calendar in the middle of space and shows how insignificant humankind really is in comparison to how long our universe has existed (this can be seen briefly at 2:41 in the trailer).

I also love the opening intro with the word COSMOS spread across a black hole/eyeball. The amount of time and work that went into creating this show certainly paid off.

Measuring the Universe

This is quite the interesting video. The Royal Observatory Greenwich put out this video last year, using motion graphics a bit of science to explain why we can measure the distance of things from us that are so far away, even if we can't physically measure them with, for example, and measuring tape.

The video reflects the narrator's commentary well, with simple, yet effective graphics used to accentuate the meaning behind each explanation.

Even with something as complex and mostly unknown as our universe, this editor found a way to make it all seem super simple and extremely understandable. And for that, he or she should be congratulated.

Space Nebulas

Hey everybody. I was just browsing through After Effects tests on YouTube and I found this one. I think it's pretty neat. 

I've always been fascinated by space and the beauty of the universe. It's pretty cool if you go on NASA's website, you can look at pictures of nebulas and other crazy cosmic stuff that the Hubble Telescope has taken. You can even download some super high quality photos for use. These tests of realistic nebulas looks pretty simple. It looks like the creator downloaded some photos then used 3d cameras to give the illusion of flying in space. I'm definitely going to try and make a scene like this in After Effects, just because the universe is so amazing.