Voyager 2 at Neptune

Although Lassell's observations of what he determined to be planetary
rings around Neptune ultimately proved to be the result of a flaw in his
telescope design, the great irony is that Neptune does have rings.

During the early 1980s, a ring system was suspected - when stars
passed behind Neptune they appeared to blink off and on again,
immediately before and after passing behind the planet.
Read The New York Times article of 10th June, 1982 here.

On 25th August, 1989 the spacecraft Voyager 2 flew past the planet.

The photographs it sent back confirmed the suspicion once and for all.

Read more about the planet Neptune by clicking here.

 
         
 

We decided to start the shot approaching Neptune, with
Voyager 2 in the middle-distance.

The camera gradually catches up with the probe and
overtakes it as it flies past Neptune, turning 180 degrees
to look back at the planet and Voyager 2 pulling away.

In reality, the camera would be moving across several
tens of thousands of miles, taking several hours to do so,
but here we had to speed the journey along.

In this shot, Neptune would be static, so would the stars,
but Voyager 2 and the camera would be moving. So we
first plotted the camera move, locked onto Neptune, then
plotted the move for Voyager 2.
 

The movie on the left shows the camera (which is the
green object) with its target-line locked onto Neptune,
flying past the planet. This was the master move that
determined how the shot would look. We timed
Voyager 2 to arrive at Neptune the same time as the
camera.

We then rendered all the components separately and
composited them together. A much easier and more
controllable process than trying to render it all at once.

 

So, as Voyager 2 heads out to the stars, 'Lost Treasures'
Series 2 comes to an end.

We hope you have enjoyed it! The series will be repeated
on The History Channel (UK) in the coming weeks and
months, and there should be a DVD set of Series 1 and
Series 2 later in the year.

Watch for announcements on the main 'Lost Treasures'
website and on the Take 27 website.

 

Click Here for The Final Shot

 

Click Here for Lassell's Telescope

 

Click Here for Williamson's Tunnels