Warped Sky: Star Trails over Arches National Park

Explanation: What's happened to the sky? A time warp, of sorts, and a digital space warp too. The time warp occurs because this image captured in a single frame a two and a half hour exposure of the night sky. As a result, prominent star trails are visible. The space warp occurs because the picture is actually a full 360 degree panorama , horizontally compressed to fit your browser. As the Earth rotated , stars appeared to circle both the North Celestial Pole , on the left, and the South Celestial Pole , just below the horizon on the right. The above panorama over Arches National Park in Utah , USA , was captured two weeks ago during early morning hours. While the eye-catching texture of ancient layered sandstone covers the image foreground, twenty-meter tall Delicate Arch is visible on the far right, and the distant arch of our Milky Way Galaxy is visible near the image center.

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