Night at the Drive-in
Image Credit &
Copyright:
Chris Cook
Colorful stars trail
through this late summer, night skyscape from
Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
The picture was
composed by stacking
12 consecutive 1 minute long digital camera exposures to follow
the trails, a reflection of our fair planet's daily
rotation.
It also records faint clouds of the Milky Way in the clear sky,
stretching above a local
drive-in movie theater.
In fact, watching movies from cars
at the drive-in
was once a more common night time activity.
But while the stars still shine,
drive-in theaters have faded from the
American landscape
over the decades since the 1950s.
Still, this recent scene includes a short exposure made as
the projector beamed a space age image to the movie screen, and
drive-in skygazers watched a view of the Earth below the International
Space Station,
under the stars above.