Star Trails and the Equinox Sunrise
Stars trail and the
Sun rises in this night and day composite
panorama made on March 19.
The view looks toward the eastern horizon from La Nava de Santiago, Spain.
To create it, a continuous series of digital frames was recorded for
about two hours and combined to trace the concentric motion of the
stars through the night sky.
A reflection
of the Earth's rotation, star trails curve around the
north celestial pole toward upper left and the south celestial
pole toward the lower right.
Of course on
that day the Sun
was near the celestial equator,
a diagonal straight line in the wide-angle projection.
A dense dimming filter was used to capture the
Sun's image every two minutes.
Superimposed on the star trails it rose due east in the morning sky.
In the scene, foreground landscape and a
local prehistoric monument
were illuminated by
full moonlight, though.
The monument's corridor
faces nearly to the east and the equinox sunrise.