The marvelous spectacle of the Milky Way at night
A photographer has captured startlingly beautiful shots of the Milky Way spiraling through the skies of southern Australia.
High above us, the Milky Way is spinning like a top, while twinkling stars and thick, dark clouds weave spirals across the sky.
This is shown in the panorama offered by photographer Christian Sasse , freezing the night sky in southern Australia. From Earth's vantage point in one of the arms of the Milky Way, our galaxy appears to be plunging into the cosmos, its winding spine clinging to the sky by the south celestial pole (one of the points around which stars and their proteges seem to wander, while the Earth revolves around its axis).
The photographer obtained the image shared on Twitter from a series of 30-second exposures, each taken at 50-minute intervals for 10 hours on April 28. He stitched these photographs together using Startrails software, then edited the final composite image in Photoshop.
“The southern sky is fascinating in many ways,” he says. He installed his equipment near one of the telescopes at the observatory in Siding Spring, New South Wales. “I remember the dull rumble of the dome all night long, as the telescope passed from one object to another. »
Based in Vancouver, the photographer had traveled to Australia to visit a friend. He rented an RV, decked the interior with the gadgets he'd need to capture wildlife and the glorious southern skies, then drove to a place where "the skies are pristine and you're alone in the people at night... or rather often attended by curious kangaroos. »
Indeed, some of the most remarkable treasures of the cosmic region closest to us are essentially visible from the southern hemisphere: Alpha Centauri (stellar system closest to ours), the constellation of luminous stars better known as the name of the Southern Cross, a dark patch called the Coalbag, the small satellite galaxies of the Small Cloud and the Large Magellanic Cloud and, finally, the gleaming spine of the Milky Way.
When images of the Milky Way taken 30 seconds apart are superimposed, a "star trail" that highlights movement emerges, but details of the galaxy disappear.
"When I'm in the northern hemisphere, I tend to look south, and when I'm in the southern hemisphere... well, I also look south", explains Christian Sasse who immortalized these curiosities in the large circular footprint he designed.
Photographers often use a similar technique to obtain images of circular stars around the celestial poles. Christian Sasse first proceeded in the same way, merging around 1,250 photographs taken on the same night, but when he put the stars in the circles, he realized that our galaxy had disappeared, taking with it she some of the most extraordinary celestial textures.
So he tried his hand at superimposing images taken at different intervals and was amazed at the result.
“Then came circular patterns of natural beauty. Every corner of the Milky Way has its own pattern, and the details get finer and finer the closer you get to the pole,” he explains. “The Milky Way forms these amazing patterns all the time and we immortalize what we like best. »
I've watched the skies all my life and this beautiful milky spiral is unlike anything I've seen before. It reminds me of a galactic mandala, the manifestation of a celestial geometry, an accidental fractal, an undulating kaleidoscope of stars.
“I am fascinated by the patterns of light that occur in nature: the iridescence of birds and fish, the structure of the feathers of eagles, everything that changes depending on the angle of view, such as diffraction and reflection” , says Christian Sasse, who holds a doctorate in optics.
All this inspires in me a feeling of wonder and admiration for the intricate patterns that are hidden in the skies, as well as a burning desire to throw myself in the grass still warmed by the southern sun, to snuggle up for a few hours and contemplate the shimmering tapestry swirling above our heads.
Source : websites