Star trails around the south celestial pole
author: Anglo-Australian Observatory/David Malin Images/Novapix
reference: a-pas01-10000
Image Size 300 DPI: 27 * 29 cm
By pointing a camera towards the south (or to the north in the northern hemisphere) at night, we can record the paths of stars which never set. They appear to circle the apparent position of the Earth's axis of rotation projected on the sky. The elevation of this position above the local horizon indicates our local geographical latitude, about 30 degrees south at Siding Spring. The angle swept out by the arcs is an indication of the exposure time, which was about 10.5 hours on 400 ISO colour film. This kind of exposure is only possible from an extremely dark site.