Tag Archives: Star trails

Star Trails Over Indonesia 

startrailsindonesia_huichieh_1920
Image Credit & Licence: HuiChieh (my dark sky)

Explanation: Both land and sky were restless. The unsettled land included erupting Mount Semeru in the distance, the caldera of steaming Mount Bromo on the left, flowing fog, and the lights of moving cars along roads that thread between hills and volcanoes in Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in East Java, Indonesia. The stirring sky included stars circling the South Celestial Pole and a meteor streaking across the image right. Theabove 270-image composite was taken from King Kong Hill in mid-June over two hours, with a rising Moon lighting the landscape.

APOD NASA 18-Aug-14

Related posts:

  1. Warped Sky: Star Trails over Arches National Park
  2. Star Trails over El Capitan
  3. Rocket Streak and Star Trails
  4. Voyager’s Neptune 

A Luminous Night 

BioluminescenceMW_PhilHart
Image Credit & Copyright: Phil Hart

 What shines in the world at night? Just visible to the eye, a rare electric blue glow spread along the shores of Victoria Lake on January 16, 2013. Against reflections of a light near the horizon, this digitally stacked long exposure recorded the bioluminescence of noctiluca scintillans, plankton stimulated by the lapping waves. Above, the night skies of the Gippsland Lakes region, Victoria, Australia shine with a fainter greenish airglow. Oxygen atoms in the upper atmosphere, initially excited by ultraviolet sunlight, produce the more widely seen fading atmospheric chemiluminescence. Washed out by the Earth’s rotation, the faint band of the southern summer Milky Way stretches from the horizon as star trails circle the South Celestial Pole.

APOD NASA 09-Aug-14

Related posts:

  1. The Terraced Night
  2. Rio at Night 
  3. ALMA Milky Way 
  4. That Night over Half Dome

Rio at Night 

RioTrailNew-sTafreshi
Image Credit & Copyright: Babak Tafreshi (TWAN)

In this night skyscape setting stars trail above the western horizon over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a venue for the 2014 World Cup. Gentle arcs from the bright, colorful stars of Orion are near the center of the frame, while the starfield itself straddles planet Earth’s celestial equator during the long exposure. Of course, trails from more local lights seem to create the strident paths through the scene. Air traffic smears an intense glow over an airport at the far right, while helicopters fly above the city and boats cruise near the coast. Striping the waterfront are tantalizing reflections of bright lights along Rio’s central beaches, Botafogo and Flamengo. Near the horizon, the brightest fixed light is the famous Cristo statue overlooking Rio at night.

APOD NASA 20-Jun-14

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  1. How to Identify that Light in the Sky 
  2. That Night over Half Dome
  3. Night Hides the World
  4. The Terraced Night

Star Trails over El Capitan

ElCapstackBolte
Image Credit & Copyright: Michael Bolte (UCSC)
Towering 3,000 feet from base to summit, the famous granite face of El Capitan in Earth’s Yosemite National Park just hides the planet’s north celestial pole in this skyscape. Of course, the north celestial poleis at the center of all the star trails. Their short arcs reflecting the planet’s daily rotation on its axis are traced in a digital stack of 36 sequential exposures. Linear trails of passing airplane navigation lights and a flare from car lights along the road below are also captured in the sequential stack. But the punctuated trail of light seen against the sheer El Capitan itself follows a climbing team on the night of November 8, 2013. The team is ascending toward the summit along The Nose, a historic rock climbing route.

NASA APOD 21-mar-2014

Related posts:

  1. Warped Sky: Star Trails over Arches National Park
  2. Rocket Streak and Star Trails
  3. Star Trails Over Indonesia 
  4. Star Trails over Natural Bridges

Warped Sky: Star Trails over Arches National Park

archtrails_brady_2000
Image Credit & Copyright: Vincent Brady

What’s happened to the sky? A time warp, of sorts, and a digital space warp too. The time warp occurs because this image captured in a single frame a two and a half hour exposure of the night sky. As a result, prominent star trails are visible. The space warp occurs because the picture is actually a full 360 degree panorama, horizontally compressed to fit your browser. As the Earth rotated, stars appeared to circle both the North Celestial Pole, on the left, and the South Celestial Pole, just below the horizon on the right. The above panorama over Arches National Park in Utah, USA, was captured two weeks ago during early morning hours. While the eye-catching texture of ancient layered sandstone covers the image foreground, twenty-meter tall Delicate Arch is visible on the far right, and the distant arch of our Milky Way Galaxy is visible near the image center.

NASA APOD 17-Mar-2014

Related posts:

  1. Star Trails over El Capitan
  2. Star Trails Over Indonesia 
  3. Rocket Streak and Star Trails
  4. Daytime Moon Meets Morning Star

Rocket Streak and Star Trails

RocketStarTrailsKillian
Image Credit & Copyright: Mike Killian / AmericaSpace

 Fixed to a tripod and looking east across the Kennedy Space Center’s Turn Basin, a camera captured these star trails as a series of short exposures over a three hour period on the evening of January 23rd. Positioned just a few miles from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, it also captured a spectacular night launch of an Atlas V rocket carrying NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite TDRS-L. Creating the trails, the apparent motion of the stars through the sky is just a reflection of the daily rotation of planet Earth on its axis. But that rotation is also the reason the rocket streak follows a path arcing east across the Atlantic. Launching toward the east, in the direction of Earth’s rotation, adds the rotation velocity to the rocket and reduces the fuel needed to reach orbit. A little ironically, TDRS-L is destined for a geostationary orbit. From there, 36,000 kilometers or so above the equator, it’s orbital period will match Earth’s rotation and the satellite will hang motionless in planet Earth’s sky.
NASA APOD 30-Jan-2014

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