Starship Asterisk*

Southern Ocean Sky

Explanation: Clouds and sky both show illuminating changes during this time lapse video from the south of Australia. In the foreground are scenes visible over a rocky coastline toward the Southern Ocean. Dark clouds flow across the sky, sometimes from different directions, sometimes blocking background starlight, but other times causing stars to appear to flare as they move in front. In the first sequence, looking toward the southwest, a nearly vertical band of zodiacal light is seen at sunset just before the band of the Milky Way Galaxy appears to settle into the sea. Soon the unusual dark patch of the Coal Sack Nebula can be seen on the Milky Way band, near the famous Southern Cross. Later, looking toward the southeast at about 2:10 in the video, Orion can be seen rising appearing nearly perpendicular to how it rises in northern skies. The composite video, winner of an award STARMUS astrophotography competition, took over a year to compile in 2009 and 2010 from over 30 hours of exposure. Mini-mystery: what are those lights moving along the horizon?

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the moving lights at the bottom...a ferry from the the Australia mainland to Tasmania perhaps?

the great ocean road behind, the water in the video is also a shipping lane between melbourne and destinations to its west - the cities adelaide and perth, and the mining ports of pt augusta and pt lincoln. no doubt the lights are on ships.

I think the brightest, golden glow is the sun and the more focused points of light at the horizon are planets. One even goes into retrograde during one sequence.

Gads!! I'd make a terrible Astronomer. I couldn't find the southern cross or the pale red star.
Staring at all that part of the universe going overhead, kinda makes one wonder just what the heck are we doing on this piece of dust out in the middle of nowhere.

I live in the general area these were taken. The lights would mostly be fishing ships, alot of them use lights at night to attract octopus.

If you look closely, you can make out a geosynchronous satellite from the 1:31 mark to about 1:52. It's faint, but you look about two thirds up from the horizon, and about 80% of the way from the left side, you'll see it remain still while all the other celestial objects pass by it. Because it's the only stationery thing in the sky, it actually appears to be moving 'against the grain'.

What is the bright greenish object on the horizon starting at 0:44?

A truly beautiful video! I even saw Orion upside down at one point.

"The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork." Psalm19:1

Absolutely beautiful display.
I saw Orion, but didn't find the Southern Cross.
I think I'll watch it again

That said, great movie, well done.

Fabulous video – really enjoyed it. Thanks to those who put in all the hard work to produce it and put it on the net. The heavens are breathtaking at any time, but especially so when presented like this.
As a northern hemisphere resident, I spotted Orion “upside down” – really makes you think about the earth being a sphere and the meaning of “down”. (I’m a retired science teacher and used to have to teach this).

Very entertaining and inspiring video. My guess for the lights is the ubiquitous automobile.

KevNYC wrote:
the moving lights at the bottom...a ferry from the the Australia mainland to Tasmania perhaps?

Flashing green-yellow lights of fireflies are a common sight in June & July.
Jupiter is at upper left in this time exposure. Photo: Bob King

[attachment=0]star trails and fireflies.jpg[/attachment]
Copyright: Steve Irvine

Submitted last year and shown here. The larger image is very cool.

I suspect the lights are from vehicles on The Great Ocean Road, which this Yank has driven when his daughter lived in Melbourne.

Hi,

Maybe it is just me, but video shown is cassini-saturn video... nothing earthly.

I tried Reload, F5, Ctrl-F5 and no change.

mrhappy99 wrote:If you look closely, you can make out a geosynchronous satellite from the 1:31 mark to about 1:52.

Nice catch!

My first thought when I saw the lights moving on the horizon was ships. That one "goes into retrograde" is compelling evidence that Matt's assertion that they're fishing ships is correct as that would be a rather unusual manoeuvre for a cargo ship.

I liked the vimeo!

I agree with Matt as well.

Recently I read an article about commercial fishing fleets and it had several shots from space, particularly off the Eastern South American coast. It was a little scary to see all these ships making essentially cities at sea.
I couldn't find that article, but here is one from The Atlantic that shows fishing fleets as well as electric lights, forest fires, and natural gas burn off.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internationa ... ded/70293/

I couldn't come up with sufficient superlatives to describe this movie, so I offer this excerpt from the STARMUS astro-photography competition:

"The scenes are chosen with the eye of an artist, but the subtle panning and excellent control of colour and contrast reveal technical skills of a high order."
--http://www.starmus.com/pages/en/winners ... ion128.php

Aloysio Carvalho wrote:Hi,

Maybe it is just me, but video shown is cassini-saturn video... nothing earthly.

I tried Reload, F5, Ctrl-F5 and no change.

I have the same issue with Firefox on every vimeo video shown in APOD. You can get the video to show if you go to the actual page of the day.

ie. if you're at http://apod.nasa.gov press the back arrow and from that page (to go to the yesterdays picture), then press the forward button (to arrive todays picture) at url http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110704.html.

mrhappy99 wrote:If you look closely, you can make out a geosynchronous satellite from the 1:31 mark to about 1:52. It's faint, but you look about two thirds up from the horizon, and about 80% of the way from the left side, you'll see it remain still while all the other celestial objects pass by it. Because it's the only stationery thing in the sky, it actually appears to be moving 'against the grain'.

It took me awhile to find it but that's really cool.

SNiLD wrote:

Aloysio Carvalho wrote:Hi,
Maybe it is just me, but video shown is cassini-saturn video... nothing earthly.
I tried Reload, F5, Ctrl-F5 and no change.

I have the same issue with Firefox on every vimeo video shown in APOD. You can get the video to show if you go to the actual page of the day.
ie. if you're at http://apod.nasa.gov press the back arrow and from that page (to go to the yesterdays picture), then press the forward button (to arrive todays picture) at url http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110704.html.

Chrome@Linux here. Same problem, same solution works fine! Thx. Great video!

I think those are boats (transatlantics)