APOD: Star Trails and Lightning over the... (2022 Sep 19)

[APOD Robot]

Star Trails and Lightning over the Pyrenees

Explanation: The beauty in this image comes in layers. On the bottom layer is the picturesque village of Manlleu in Barcelona, Spain. The six-minute exposure makes car lights into streaks. The next layer is a mountain -- Serra de Bellmunt -- of Europe's famous Pyrenees. Next up is a tremendous lightning storm emanating from a classically-shaped anvil cloud. The long exposure allowed for the capture of many intricate lightning bolts. Finally, at the top and furthest in the distance are stars. Here, the multi-minute exposure made stars into trails. The trailing effect is caused by the rotation of the Earth, and the curvature of the trails indicates their distance from the north spin pole of the Earth above. Taken after sunset in early June, the lightning storm soon moved off. The stars, though, will continue to circle the pole for as long as the Earth spins -- surely billions of years into the future.

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[Ann]

That's a magnificent portrait of a ferocious storm and its torrent of lightning bolts.

That said, and this APOD being considered an image more suitable for an APOD than an EPOD, I have to say that star trail pictures drive me slightly crazy. That is because I think I should be able to identify the stars, and I try, and I almost think I can do it , but then I never can. I get defeated every time.


It's like being shown a picture of a galaxy and being told in the caption that this is a "galaxy", a generic specimen, and that is all you need to know. (Actually, the galaxy I gave you a link to is IC 342.)


Can anyone help me with today's APOD? Can someone out there identify any of the stars behind the star trails in this image?

Ann

[Rauf]

"The stars, though, will continue to circle the poll for as long as the Earth spins"
I am sorry, but is that supposed to be poll?? Shouldn't it be pole instead??

[owlice]

"The stars, though, will continue to circle the poll for as long as the Earth spins"
I am sorry, but is that supposed to be poll?? Shouldn't it be pole instead??

Yes, I think so, and I've corrected it here and on FB and dropped a note to the APOD editor.

[Rauf]

That's a magnificent portrait of a ferocious storm and its torrent of lightning bolts.

That said, and this APOD being considered an image more suitable for an APOD than an EPOD, I have to say that star trail pictures drive me slightly crazy. That is because I think I should be able to identify the stars, and I try, and I almost think I can do it , but then I never can. I get defeated every time.


It's like being shown a picture of a galaxy and being told in the caption that this is a "galaxy", a generic specimen, and that is all you need to know. (Actually, the galaxy I gave you a link to is IC 342.)


Can anyone help me with today's APOD? Can someone out there identify any of the stars behind the star trails in this image?

Ann

The mountain is to the north and northwest of the Manlleu city. This picture was taken on June 9, after sunset. I tried recreating the scene in Stellarium and the only bright constellation that matched the star trails were stars of Cassiopeia. I am not sure how if fits though..

[Rauf]

"The stars, though, will continue to circle the poll for as long as the Earth spins"
I am sorry, but is that supposed to be poll?? Shouldn't it be pole instead??

Yes, I think so, and I've corrected it here and on FB and dropped a note to the APOD editor.

Thank you I was just wondering what does poll means here

[FLPhotoCatcher]

Was this a single exposure, or is it a composite?

[Ann]

That's a magnificent portrait of a ferocious storm and its torrent of lightning bolts.

That said, and this APOD being considered an image more suitable for an APOD than an EPOD, I have to say that star trail pictures drive me slightly crazy. That is because I think I should be able to identify the stars, and I try, and I almost think I can do it , but then I never can. I get defeated every time.


It's like being shown a picture of a galaxy and being told in the caption that this is a "galaxy", a generic specimen, and that is all you need to know. (Actually, the galaxy I gave you a link to is IC 342.)


Can anyone help me with today's APOD? Can someone out there identify any of the stars behind the star trails in this image?

Ann

The mountain is to the north and northwest of the Manlleu city. This picture was taken on June 9, after sunset. I tried recreating the scene in Stellarium and the only bright constellation that matched the star trails were stars of Cassiopeia. I am not sure how if fits though..

Click to view full size image

Thanks, Rauf! I was actually thinking of Cassiopeia myself. That long bright blue streak at top made me think of Gamma Cas, but as for the rest of the constellation... I can't find it there.

Ann

[RJN]

"The stars, though, will continue to circle the poll for as long as the Earth spins"
I am sorry, but is that supposed to be poll?? Shouldn't it be pole instead??

Oops. My bad. Fixed it.Thanks! I apologize for the mistake.
- RJN

[orin stepanek]

Beautiful storm cloud photo! Too bad that they're so scary! Best to
be indoors during lightning!

Kitty scared; don't like thunder and lightning!

[Chris Peterson]

Was this a single exposure, or is it a composite?

Almost certainly a stack of shorter images. Uncooled cameras cannot take such long exposures without dark current saturating their sensors.

[Chris Peterson]

"The stars, though, will continue to circle the poll for as long as the Earth spins"
I am sorry, but is that supposed to be poll?? Shouldn't it be pole instead??

A completely understandable Freudian slip during American election season...

[MarkBour]

The art of circling a poll.

RE: Circling the pole for billions of years, and being able to recognize which stars are which from the tracks.
Martin Vargic has created a nice plot of some favorites, including Cassiopeia:

[MarkBour]

I have to say that star trail pictures drive me slightly crazy. That is because I think I should be able to identify the stars, and I try, and I almost think I can do it , but then I never can. I get defeated every time.

Ann

Okay, I opened the image in Photoshop and made a new layer, putting a dot at the far left of each trail. When finished with that, I inserted a black mask in an intermediate layer. I immediately realized that there's lots of information I'm not reproducing! The brightness and the color of the trails (information you'd be very good at making use of). But this is the 10-minutes-of-work result.

I'm sure there's software somewhere that can do this far better. I actually thought some such tool had been mentioned in the forum before, but I don't recall. I looked at a couple of tutorials on "reducing star trails in Photoshop", but they don't seem to apply to such lengthy trails.

Then, finally, I thought that maybe you don't want this. Perhaps you were just wanting to see if you could handle the menrtal challenge without such tools, which would be considered cheating, in that case.

[FLPhotoCatcher]

Was this a single exposure, or is it a composite?

Almost certainly a stack of shorter images. Uncooled cameras cannot take such long exposures without dark current saturating their sensors.

That's what I was thinking. Also, it looks like a stacked image, but with some areas taken from a single exposure.
Per the photog's description on Instagram, "The photo shows six consecutive minutes of storm." I guess he took photos as close together as possible for six minutes, and stacked them somehow.

[Ann]

I have to say that star trail pictures drive me slightly crazy. That is because I think I should be able to identify the stars, and I try, and I almost think I can do it , but then I never can. I get defeated every time.

Ann

Okay, I opened the image in Photoshop and made a new layer, putting a dot at the far left of each trail. When finished with that, I inserted a black mask in an intermediate layer. I immediately realized that there's lots of information I'm not reproducing! The brightness and the color of the trails (information you'd be very good at making use of). But this is the 10-minutes-of-work result.

Click to view full size image

I'm sure there's software somewhere that can do this far better. I actually thought some such tool had been mentioned in the forum before, but I don't recall. I looked at a couple of tutorials on "reducing star trails in Photoshop", but they don't seem to apply to such lengthy trails.

Then, finally, I thought that maybe you don't want this. Perhaps you were just wanting to see if you could handle the menrtal challenge without such tools, which would be considered cheating, in that case.

Thanks, Mark, that's fantastic! Unfortunately, I still don't recognize any star patterns.

You guessed that maybe I don't want to use the tools you used to "unscramble" star trail images. Unfortunately, you are correct. I want astronomy to be fun, and doing the kind of things you describe doesn't seem like fun to me.

Ann

[MarkBour]

You guessed that maybe I don't want to use the tools you used to "unscramble" star trail images. Unfortunately, you are correct. I want astronomy to be fun, and doing the kind of things you describe doesn't seem like fun to me.

Ann

Okay, then how about this?
Go back to the original with only trails. I'm curious. Can you recognize any stars by the brightness and color of the trails?
I mean I certainly can't, but I wonder if that's possible for someone who knows what they're looking for.

If it is June in Barcelona, Spain, and if it is looking North, I think Vega and Deneb might be in view. One odd thing, though, the North star would be in the sky, but the shape of those star tracks make it seem that it would have been very high above this image, and that doesn't make sense.

The mountain is to the north and northwest of the Manlleu city. This picture was taken on June 9, after sunset. I tried recreating the scene in Stellarium and the only bright constellation that matched the star trails were stars of Cassiopeia. I am not sure how if fits though..

Ah. Nice. I went to Stellarium and repeated your steps, and sure enough, Cassiopeia is right in view. But it was only at about 15^o inclination, so I am wondering if it would have been right behind the storm cloud. Whatever is there, it should start with a "C". Near Cassiopeia, I see were Cepheus, Cygnus, and Camelopardalis. Even knowing that, though, I can't meet Ann's challenge from this photo.

[Rauf]

You guessed that maybe I don't want to use the tools you used to "unscramble" star trail images. Unfortunately, you are correct. I want astronomy to be fun, and doing the kind of things you describe doesn't seem like fun to me.

Ann

Okay, then how about this?
Go back to the original with only trails. I'm curious. Can you recognize any stars by the brightness and color of the trails?
I mean I certainly can't, but I wonder if that's possible for someone who knows what they're looking for.

If it is June in Barcelona, Spain, and if it is looking North, I think Vega and Deneb might be in view. One odd thing, though, the North star would be in the sky, but the shape of those star tracks make it seem that it would have been very high above this image, and that doesn't make sense.

The mountain is to the north and northwest of the Manlleu city. This picture was taken on June 9, after sunset. I tried recreating the scene in Stellarium and the only bright constellation that matched the star trails were stars of Cassiopeia. I am not sure how if fits though..

Ah. Nice. I went to Stellarium and repeated your steps, and sure enough, Cassiopeia is right in view. But it was only at about 15^o inclination, so I am wondering if it would have been right behind the storm cloud. Whatever is there, it should start with a "C". Near Cassiopeia, I see were Cepheus, Cygnus, and Camelopardalis. Even knowing that, though, I can't meet Ann's challenge from this photo.

I think because the mountain range is really far from the city, it doesn't cover that much of the sky. So it it should cover just around 5^o high. If you look at the star trails, if it was any higher than 15^o their trail's curve would have been greater, at least that is what I think.
I apologize for my bad English

[Rauf]

That's a magnificent portrait of a ferocious storm and its torrent of lightning bolts.

That said, and this APOD being considered an image more suitable for an APOD than an EPOD, I have to say that star trail pictures drive me slightly crazy. That is because I think I should be able to identify the stars, and I try, and I almost think I can do it , but then I never can. I get defeated every time.


It's like being shown a picture of a galaxy and being told in the caption that this is a "galaxy", a generic specimen, and that is all you need to know. (Actually, the galaxy I gave you a link to is IC 342.)


Can anyone help me with today's APOD? Can someone out there identify any of the stars behind the star trails in this image?

Ann

The mountain is to the north and northwest of the Manlleu city. This picture was taken on June 9, after sunset. I tried recreating the scene in Stellarium and the only bright constellation that matched the star trails were stars of Cassiopeia. I am not sure how if fits though..

Click to view full size image

Thanks, Rauf! I was actually thinking of Cassiopeia myself. That long bright blue streak at top made me think of Gamma Cas, but as for the rest of the constellation... I can't find it there.

Ann

Yeah, me too. I wish the photographer himself could explain! I always enjoy talking to them

[MarkBour]

I think because the mountain range is really far from the city, it doesn't cover that much of the sky. So it it should cover just around 5^o high. If you look at the star trails, if it was any higher than 15^o their trail's curve would have been greater, at least that is what I think.
I apologize for my bad English

In that case, this makes sense. And your English is fine, too. Thanks.