APOD: Teide Sky Trails (2010 Feb 12)

[APOD Robot]

Teide Sky Trails

Explanation: The snow capped Teide volcano is reflected in a pool of water in this nearly symmetric night sky view from the Canary Island Tenerife. Bright north star Polaris stands above the peak in an exposure that also captures the brilliant trail of a polar orbiting Iridium satellite. Of course, with the camera fixed to a tripod, the stars themselves produce concentric trails in long exposures, a reflection of the Earth's rotation around its axis. In fact, you can add about 4.5 hours of exposure time to this image by just sliding your cursor over the picture. Large astronomical observatories also take advantage of the calm Canary Island sky.

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[Pit]

A pool of water. Of that size. Close to Teide. Sure.....

[petsie]

Hi astronomy fans,

if I follow the link to the Iridium satelite, I get a page describing the collision and destruction of two satelites. Does the visible trail come from
a) a successor of Iridium 33 (my first guess)
b)the field of debrish of Iridium 33 which is somehow close together (if so, I misunderstood http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090218.html )
c) some sweeties thrown into space by LGM
?

TIA,
Peter

[Chris Peterson]

if I follow the link to the Iridium satelite, I get a page describing the collision and destruction of two satelites. Does the visible trail come from
a) a successor of Iridium 33 (my first guess)
b)the field of debrish of Iridium 33 which is somehow close together (if so, I misunderstood http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090218.html )
c) some sweeties thrown into space by LGM

None of the above. The link is a bit of a red herring. The Iridium satellite captured in this shot was not Iridium 33, which is largely destroyed and no longer produces flares. Given the date and time of the image it would be simple to determine which satellite actually produced the flare.

[neufer]

A pool of water. Of that size. Close to Teide. Sure.....

• It could be some sort of an act of MAGEC:

<<Mount Teide is an active volcano which last erupted in 1909 from the El Chinyero vent on the Santiago (northwestern) rift. The volcano and its surroundings comprise the Teide National Park and is located on Tenerife, Canary Islands. Prior to the 1495 Spanish colonization of Tenerife, the native Guanches referred to the volcano as Echeyde. According to legend, Guayota (devil) abducted MAGEC (god of light and the sun), and took him inside Echeyde. The Guanches Achamán asked their supreme God for clemency. Achamán hit Guayota, MAGEC was lifted from the bowels of Echeyde and plugged the crater with Guayota in it and since then Guayota remains locked inside Teide. When entering Teide erupting, it was customary that the Guanches lit bonfires to scare a Guayota.The Guanches also believed that Echeyde held up the sky. The many "hiding" found in the mountains with archaeological remains of stone tools and pottery have been interpreted as deposits rituals to counter the influence of evil spirits (evil genius).

El Teide is a volcano of Vesuvius type. At 3718 m above sea level, and approximately 7500 m above the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, it is the highest mountain in Spain, highest point in the Atlantic Ocean and the 13th highest mountain in the European Union (highest mountain not in the Alps). The island of Tenerife itself is the third largest volcanic ocean island on Earth by volume. Teide is also the third highest volcano on a volcanic ocean island. It is also unstable and possibly in a more advanced stage of deformation and failure than the much publicised Cumbre Vieja. The United Nations Committee for Disaster Mitigation designated Teide as a Decade Volcano, because of its history of destructive eruptions and its proximity to several large towns, of which the closest are Garachico, Icod de los Vinos and Puerto de la Cruz.

El Pico del Teide (The Peak of Teide) is the modern Spanish name attributed to the volcano. The Lunar mountain, Mons Pico, part of the Montes Teneriffe mountain range, situated in the inner ring of the lunar mare Imbrium, was named after this 18th Century version by Johann Schröter.>>

[John Currans]

Does the accumulated light on the volcano come from starlight or some other source?

[woodeye]

When I study this view of the night sky, why do I see multiple formations of stars that resemble perfect circle constellations?? study carefully the photo without the circular trails left by the time exposure to see what I mean.

[l3p3r]

This is the first image of this type (the long exposure one) in which I've seen such clear differentiation of the colours of the stars ... does this require some kind of special camera or setup/post processing?

[Pit]

John: Starlight is possible (it's dark enough there to missjudge milky way for clouds and zodiacal light for urban skyglow), but could also be beginning dawn (the star image seems to be taken much later than the end of the trail images)

l3p3r: Postprocessing for sure, the water effect is photoshoped anyhow, so most likely also the strong colours are enhanced/saturation stretched.

[bystander]

From the Daniel Lopez astrophotography web site Ceilos del Teide



google translation of caption

IRIDIUM satellite traces of Mount Teide. Taken from the Plain of Ucanca shortly after sunset where the landscape is illuminated with light of the sunset and the appearance of the first stars. It can be seen the reflection of the satellite in the large puddle of water.

google translation of caption

Trace star of Mount Teide. 4 ½ hours total exposure which is pointing toward the North Star, the traces of the stars reflected in a large puddle of water coming from the heavy rains of previous days. Also, a trace of a satellite IRIDIUM

The impression I got from his web site, he either lives on the island, or spends a lot of time there.

[Chris Peterson]

This is the first image of this type (the long exposure one) in which I've seen such clear differentiation of the colours of the stars ... does this require some kind of special camera or setup/post processing?

No, this is normal and requires no special processing. Star colors are always pretty clear if they aren't allowed to saturate. This requires some combination of stopping down the lens, taking short enough subexposures, and operating at an imaging scale such that the stars move off of pixels before they saturate.

That said, the color saturation levels in this image have pretty obviously been pushed up in Photoshop. But you can only do that when working with raw data that isn't overexposed.

[l3p3r]

Thanks for the reply! I'll have to try this someday