Polaris - The current Pole Star

Posted by Craig (Vacaville, California, United States) on 29 March 2009 in Abstract & Conceptual and Portfolio.

Polaris (center), seen here from Death Valley, CA, is located 430 light years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Minor. Go here for more information. The stars here leave trails as the Earth rotates around its axis. Some stars appear redder and some bluer due to the Doppler shift of light waves as the heavenly bodies approach or recede from their relative positions. I just love this stuff! :0) I got up at 4:30 am to shoot this. I just lucked out that there was no moon out the two nights we spent in Death Valley. I opened the aperture up all the way, pointed the camera (on tripod) at Polaris and held the shutter open for a little over 12 minutes.

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