Photographs like this one above may be misinterpreted by many as a digitally manipulated night scene with thin streaks added in the background to simulate meteor shower. However, the lines are indeed created by the several bright stars in the night sky. Why are they lines instead of bright dots then?

"Star trails" is the term used to describe such lines that add interest to the otherwise boring sky. These star trails are caused by the rotation of our planet. Just imagine the sky above us is turning in a circular manner. Hence the distant stars will also be moving in some directions accordingly. The capturing of star trails is done by exposing the camera shutter long enough (means clicking and holding on to the shutter for a long time, i.e. 10 minutes for the above picture), so that as the stars move, their images will streak across the film (or in my case the CCD sensor).

Another interesting fact is that the North Star (or Polaris) is the only visible star that doesn’t seem to move a bit even as our planet rotates. So if the camera is pointed at the North Star and has its shutter exposed for a long period of time, you will probably see a lot of circular streaks of star trails, with a bright dot (the North Star) in the middle of these circles.

During my Cameron Highlands trip, I had the luck to see a night sky decorated with a blanket of stars. Hoping to capture some star trail pictures, I aimed my rangefinder into the sky with some leaves in the foreground. Sadly, the pictures I took turned out to be less than satisfying, and I only managed to salvage 2 shots.

This one is taken using at around 23 mm focal length, exposed for 20 minutes. Trails not really obvious due to light pollution.

I’ll be off to Phuket tomorrow, planning to enjoy the beach there for 3 days and then end off my last trip of these holidays with a 42 km Marathon. I’m going to bring my DSLR this time, hoping to get a better night sky there and capture more of such star trails.