Night under the stars

By AG STAFF February 24, 2016
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In the southern hemisphere, aiming a camera south creates a star trail with concentric circular streaks centred on the south celestial pole.

This week’s reader photo was taken by self-taught photographer, John Finnan, from Toowoomba, Queensland:

“This scene is taken in the incredible Warrumbungle National Park from the Grand High Tops looking south over Crater Bluff,” said John.

“It’s just one of the many amazing scenes to experience within Warrumbungle NP. The Siding Springs Observatory is on the other side of the park. The foreground lighting is thanks to the moon, which was about first quarter. I was shooting a series of images for a time-lapse video and used about 25 of these 30-second images taken 40 seconds apart to create the star trail. If you look closely at the brighter stars you can see how far the Earth rotates each minute. I captured the Milky Way spinning around the south celestial pole above Crater Bluff from east to west in the time-lapse over five hours.

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