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Rudi
10-15-200615th October 2006, 08:12 PM
In prehistoric times people had no television, and they spent a lot of time looking at the stars. Over the millennia, several different myths and stories developed about different constellations, the Milky Way, and other phenomena that can be seen in the night sky. These are different for all the various cultures in the world.

Looking at the Milky Way under a dark sky, the dust lanes (dark patches) that block the light of the background stars become very apparent. Indigenous Australians saw an Emu in the sky when looking at the Milky Way in millennia past - and it becomes very clear in this sky shot from near Ilford, NSW.

EOS 5D, Sigma 12-24mm at 12mm (very slight crop). I forget the exact exposure time, and am too lazy to look it up right now, but it was somewhere between 2 and 5 minutes. (helpful, huh? :D) You can see Jupiter (bright "star" on the left hand edge) as well as some tree tops in the bottom of the image (this is real WIDE field!).

http://i.pbase.com/o4/27/595027/1/59127824._MG_2703.jpg

Jonathan
10-15-200615th October 2006, 08:17 PM
Wow Rudi!! I had no idea that you shot these scenes! Its hard to expect less than exceptional from you as is this picture

Rudi
10-15-200615th October 2006, 08:22 PM
Well, Jonathan, I prefer to shoot other heavenly bodies :D, but sometimes there are no opportunities to do so - so I turn my camera up to the heavens to fill in time... :)

Keith
10-15-200615th October 2006, 08:46 PM
very cool considering nothing but cam and lens :D

Roger
10-15-200615th October 2006, 08:50 PM
Where was this taken and under what conditions?

Rudi
10-15-200615th October 2006, 08:53 PM
very cool considering nothing but cam and lens :D

Sorry Keith, should have mentioned that this was piggybacked on the back of a telescope to compensate for the Earth's rotation during exposure. The Earth really spins quite quickly, you know? :)

Rudi
10-15-200615th October 2006, 08:56 PM
Where was this taken and under what conditions?

Near Ilford (I love the photographic "affiliation" of the name :D), NSW, Australia, under very dark skies (VERY dark skies).

Roger
10-16-200616th October 2006, 04:33 AM
Near Ilford (I love the photographic "affiliation" of the name :D), NSW, Australia, under very dark skies (VERY dark skies).

So you mean with no moon?

Rudi
10-16-200616th October 2006, 06:33 AM
No Moon. :)

Kevin
10-16-200616th October 2006, 11:37 AM
Hey Keith! This is what I was hoping we could accomplish that night at Sunwapta (sounds like a title to a novel :rolleyes: ) I had done only brief reading and hoped that this would be revealed at shorter exposures (since we were using a fence post to set the camera on.) Oh well, not quite what I expected but your shot is great, Rudi! Maybe one of these days....