October 23, 2013
The light from the farthest visible stars set out on its journey long before your first birthday.
North Celestial Tree
Birthday · October 23, 2013
A little universe, just for you
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APOD published October 23, 2013. Credit: Jerónimo Losada. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
If you climbed this magnificent tree, it looks like you could reach out and touch the North Celestial Pole at the center of all the star trail arcs. The well-composed image was recorded over a period of nearly 2 hours as a series of 30 second long, consecutive exposures on the night of October 5. The exposures were made with a digital camera fixed to a tripod near Almaden de la Plata, province of Seville, in southern Spain, planet Earth. Of course, the graceful star trails reflect the Earth's daily rotation around its axis. By extension, the axis of rotation leads to the center of the concentric arcs in the night sky. Convenient for northern hemisphere night sky photographers and celestial navigators alike, the bright star Polaris is very close to the North Celestial Pole and so makes the short bright trail in the central gap between the leafy branches.
Image credit: Jerónimo Losada