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May 31, 2013

Star Trails Over Gemini North

Approximately two hours of stacked exposures of the summer sky over the Gemini North Telescope. The setting moon provides light on the right of the dome, twilight provides a glow to the left side of the dome, and a small, red light provides highlight on center of dome. A star field has been offset by about 30 minutes to show individual stars separated from trails, revealing Scorpius and Sagittarius over the Gemini dome.

Technical Details: Each exposure was 50 seconds using a Nikon D1X camera and a 14 millimeter f/2.8 Nikkor lens at an ISO setting of 800 and "stacked" in Photoshop to create the single image from the over 100 individual images. (See Sky & Telescope, March 2004, for details on the technique used to create this image.) (Date of Image: March 2004)

Credit: Gemini Observatory

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