                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                 2022 July 8

                         Roots on a Rotating Planet
               Image Credit & Copyright: Marcella Giulia Pace

   Explanation: With roots on a rotating planet, an old tree is centered
   in this sequence of 137 exposures each 20 seconds long, recorded one
   night from northern Sicily. Digital camera and fisheye lens were fixed
   to a tripod to capture the dramatic timelapse, so the stars trailed
   through the region's dark sky. Of course that makes it easy to spot the
   planet's north celestial pole. The extension of Earth's axis of
   rotation into space is toward the upper left, at the center of the
   concentric star trail arcs. The Milky Way is there too. The plane of
   our galaxy stretches across the wide field of view from north to east
   (left to right) creating a broader luminous band of diffuse starlight.

                      Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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