October 4, 2008
A Loooong Lunar Exposure
image by Danny Caes
This is a repeat of a classic LPOD from April 30, 2005.
The Moon is the brightest object in the night sky and sometimes imagers have a hard time getting a short enough exposure. But this image is 6 hours long! The Moon is clearly overexposed but not too much as it traces its nightly movement across the sky of the Belgium city of Ghent. It is a fisheye photograph from a window in Danny’s roof. Curved trails of a few stars are visible, but as in most cities the sky is obscured by bright spotlights, in this case from the local prison – good luck on getting them to use a full cutoff light shield! Security is the latest justification for self-important bureaucratic yahoos to waste energy lighting the sky. A recent horrendous example is that Department of Transportation sheds in small towns all across North Dakota are being "protected" with two 400-watt floodlights, unshielded of course. Erasing the dark night sky of the northern plains is another casualty, apparently, of the unending fight against terrorism.
Chuck Wood
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