Rotating Sky Above Sydney

The long exposure image (a photo sequence) captures the southern sky motion (due to the Earth rotation) over the Sydney harbour in the course of about 2 hours. In the center of the star trails, the “empty” area marks the south celestial pole. In bright urban skies recording stars is easier with a stacked sequence of short exposure photos (star trails) rather than a single long exposure which gets vanished by city light. In the lower left is the Sydney Opera House, a World Heritage Site. The fade ghostly trails across the sky and over the bridge are made by flying birds illuminated by the harbour lights. Click on the second photo to see an interesting time-exposure picture of the Opera House where birds, trapped by the house floodlight, trail around in the sky.