1961 U.S. television release version of “Universe”, b&w

Universe (Notre univers) is a 1960 black-and-white animated documentary short film made in 1960 by Roman Kroitor and Colin Low for the National Film Board of Canada, which says that the film “creates on the screen a vast, awe-inspiring picture of the universe as it would appear to a voyager through space. Realistic animation takes you into far regions of space, beyond the reach of the strongest telescope, past Moon, Sun, and Milky Way into galaxies yet unfathomed.”

This visualization is grounded in the nightly work of Dr. Donald MacRae, an astronomer at the David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill, Ontario, a facility formerly owned and operated by Toronto University and now operated by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Using the technology of his era, MacRae prepares his largely manually-operated equipment and then photographs, by long exposure, one star. He actually strikes an arc between iron electrodes and makes a simultaneous exposure, which he can compare to the star’s spectrum to determine its movement relative to Earth.