Winter Stars Over Taj mahal

Winter stars set in the sky of Agra, over Taj Mahal. The long exposure image (a photo sequence) captures the sky motion (due to the Earth rotation) in the course of about one hour. Sky of populated cities like Agra is light polluted and often dusty but right after a cleaning rain and strong wind it would be possible to see some stars and in the bright urban skies recording them is easier with a stacked sequence of photos (star trails) compared to a single short exposure. Click on the second photo to see a shorter exposure image that better shows the constellations in this parts of the sky. The brightest “star” in the middle is in fact planet Jupiter. Taj Mahal is one of the world’s architectural wonders, a World Heritage Site that is described as the most extravagant monument ever built for love. It was built by King Shah Jahan in the mid-17th century as the tomb of his beloved Persian wife, Mumtaz Mahal.