Science at Parramatta High
Stars in your eyes
Below is a view of a small section of the southern sky, from the Southern Cross to Eta Carinae (which nestles in the collection of stars known as Trumpler 16).
Sadly, the skies over Parramatta are too light-polluted for decent star photography. This shot was taken some 15km north, at Pennant Hills. The night skies are still unpleasantly bright there, though.
This exposure was tracked for about 5 minutes, using a 50mm lens at f2 with 400ASA film.
The black area at right is a building, at lower left are trees, and across the centre of the field is a utility cable.
Exposures longer than this one suffer fogging due to light pollution. Even so... many, many more stars are visible in this photo than can be seen naked eye.
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The Southern Cross features on our national flag. Did you identify it in the above photo?
Return to near occultations, lunar eclipse, Saturn, or Jupiter.
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