Last evening, the Eclipse Megamovie project posted a preview of the photos of the total solar eclipse submitted by a cast of some 1,500 volunteers spread out along the path of totality.

The crowd-sourced video is the result of a collaboration between UC Berkeley solar physicists based at the Space Sciences Laboratory and Google engineers, who developed the algorithm to stitch the images together.

Published after 7 p.m. PDT Aug. 21, the video shows a selection of images from these , giving an extended look at the sun's atmosphere. They were algorithmically stitched together based on the time and location of the photo; gaps in the coverage are filled by the previous image.

As more photos are uploaded and processed, these gaps will be filled in and the movie will get better and better, providing opportunities for the to study the sun for years to come.

Credit: University of California - Berkeley