Surreal Night Sky Panorama

Time-exposure 360-degree panorama has captured nearly the entire sky over La Silla, Chile. The Earth rotation appears in form of the rotating sky above us. Long exposure images capture this motion in form of star trails around the celestial poles. Here the south celestial pole is right above the rock, marking the south direction of the Earth rotation axis. On the left end star trails over the southern horizon are curved around the north celestial pole (under the horizon from this southern hemisphere location). The bright trail on the right is the Moon. Click on the second photo to see another version of the image started after the moonset.