June 27, 2019
Another year older means another lap aboard a world spinning through the void at impossible speed.
The Longer Days
Birthday · June 27, 2019
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published June 27, 2019. Credit: Gianluca Belgrado. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
This persistent six month long exposure compresses the time from solstice to solstice (December 21, 2018 to June 16, 2019) into a single point of view. Dubbed a solargraph, the unconventional picture was recorded with a tall, tube-shaped pinhole camera using a piece of photographic paper. Fixed to a single spot at Casarano, Italy for the entire exposure, the simple camera continuously records the Sun's daily path as a glowing trail burned into the photosensitive paper. Breaks and gaps in the trails are caused by cloud cover. At the end of the exposure, the paper was scanned to create the digital image. Of course, starting in December the Sun trails peak lower in the sky, near the northern hemisphere's winter solstice. The trails climb higher as the days grow longer and the June 21st summer solstice approaches.
Image credit: Gianluca Belgrado