Sunset over Cape Town

From the photographer: “This image is a combination of 548 individual shots taken in Cape Town, South Africa. The image shows a synopsis some minutes before the beginning of the sunset until 2 hours after that. The planet Mercury is fine to see below the star Regulus (is the brightest star of the constellation Leo). Left star trails are curved around the South pole and the right star trails are curved around the North pole. Stars that are located on the celestial equator have straight lines. The exact point of West is marked.
The image shows that the sun was placed in the northern part of the celestial sphere at 15th July 2011 (near the summer solstice at 21th July). The dotted lines are caused due to illuminated and moving fishing boats and due to the exposure time interval of 15 seconds.”
© Erich Meyer