The photo laboratory

Change something.
See why.

Move sunlight, turn a galaxy or send energy through gas. Each experiment sits beside the photograph that inspired it.

Cassiopeia

Break the W apart in depth

Turn the five named stars sideways using measured distances. The familiar pattern disappears because its stars are not neighbours in space.

Eastern Veil Nebula

Scrub through an explosion’s aftermath. Watch an expanding front reach denser patches of gas and make them shine.

Elephant’s Trunk Nebula

Turn a dusty pillar around. Change how much material lies in the light path and see why more matter can look darker.

Heart Nebula

Follow ultraviolet energy from young stars into hydrogen gas, then watch visible light leave in new directions.

Andromeda Galaxy

Tilt a spiral disc and separate foreground stars from the distant galaxy. A flat photograph hides an enormous amount of depth.

Triangulum Galaxy

Start almost face-on, then tilt the disc. See how the same spiral can become a narrow streak without changing its stars.

The Moon

Take control of the Sun’s direction. Watch the day–night boundary sweep across a textured globe while the Moon itself stays whole.

North America Nebula

Put a dusty screen in front of glowing gas, then add more dust. Darkness can be foreground material, rather than an empty patch of sky.

The Pleiades

Follow white starlight through dust. Add grains and see scattered blue light leave the direct beam towards a different viewpoint.

Around Polaris

Let a fixed camera watch the sky as Earth turns. Change elapsed time to grow the arcs; the stars are not circling Polaris in space.

Soul Nebula

Move time forward in an illustrative cloud. Watch a young cluster push material outwards into a bright rim.