Sunset to Sunrise Over the Baltic Sea

A composite of multiple photos, as seen on Astronomy Picture of the Day. This serene view from the coast of Sweden looks across the Baltic sea and compresses time, presenting the passage of one night in a single photograph. From sunset to sunrise, moonlight illuminates the creative sea and skyscape. Fleeting clouds, fixed stars, and flowing northern lights leave their traces in planet Earth’s sky. To construct the timelapse image, 3296 video frames were recorded on the night of a nearly full moon between 7:04pm and 6:35am local time. As time progresses from left to right (move the slider on image), a single column of pixels was taken from the corresponding individual frame and combined in sequence into a single digital image.