Light Polluted Winter Circle

A photo composite of multiple exposures. From the photographer: “During the evening of 02.02.2024, I had the opportunity to capture the Winter Circle for the first time. The Winter Circle/Hexagon is an asterism appearing to be in the form of a hexagon with vertices at Rigel, Aldebaran, Capella, Pollux, Procyon, and Sirius. It is mostly upon the Northern Hemisphere’s celestial sphere. In the evening sky in the northern hemisphere, it is visible between December and June, and in the southern hemisphere, it is visible for fewer months between July and November. The stars in the hexagon are parts of six constellations. Counter-clockwise around the hexagon, starting with Rigel, these are Orion, Taurus, Auriga, Gemini, Canis Minor, and Canis Major.

During this evening, a fine layer of clouds was at the lower stages of the atmosphere. On the one hand, it created the effect of a diffuser filter, diffusing beautifully the light of the night sky, yet on the other hand, reflecting the scattered light from the nearest villages as well as the city of Athens (light pollution). I took advantage of this incident to create an image as a statement for the light pollution, combining in the same frame evidence of the light pollution, light trails from cars and the night sky. My goal is to show the detrimental consequences of light pollution and encourage more people to get informed and involved in the protection of the night sky.

Technical details:
A photo composite, captured from the exact location/spot, however, the foreground images had different ISO settings from the sky images.”