6 hours of Star Trails from Payson

Uploaded 9/15/07

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 As the Earth turns, the stars rotate endlessly over the poles, and only long exposures such as this can capture the majesty of the Polar Rotation. The brightest star near center is Polaris, which is the North star and really about 3/4 degrees away from the true pole and the center of rotation. This type of imaging also brings up the star colors dramatically, revealing our galaxy is a dynamic collection of pastel colors ranging from deep reds to cobalt blues.

To take this shot, the camera was set up on a tripod and an automated timer was sequenced to yield 36 exposures of 10 minutes each separated by 1 second. The images were then combined in software to form the complete pictorial.

Instrument: Sigma 8mm f/3.5 fisheye lens Platform: Tripod Camera: Hutech Modified Canon XTi @ ISO400 Exposure: 6 hours total (10m subs) Filters: None Location: Payson, Arizona Elevation: 5150 ft. Sky: Seeing 8/10, Transparency 9/10 Outside Temperature: 65F Processing Tools: Photoshop CS2, Maxim DSLR HOME GALAXIES EMISSION NEBS REFLECTION NEBS COMETS GLOBULARS OPEN CLUST PLANETARIES LINKS FastCounter by bCentral