How the Earth moves (Niall MacNeill)

How the Earth moves

I have announcement. Wattle Flat, where my observatory is located is moving and I have the proof!!!
This is a reprocessed animation of some footage I took at Wattle Flat back in March 2018. This was deleted from AstroBin during the data loss event sometime ago. I was never happy with the original as I had never corrected the colours which were overly green. Here the colours have been corrected and the blue colour is striking. This was captured in the middle of the night with the full Moon. I took 41 x 30 sec images, ISO 800, f/5.6 every 4 mins (2.7 hours total).
We have the perception that the stars are moving in great arcs in the sky above us through the night. But of course that is not what is really happening. We are moving!........the Earth rotates about its axis every 24 hours.
I registered the stars against those in a reference image in the middle of the sequence. Of course since it then adjusts i.e. rotates and moves each image so the stars align with the reference image, the terrain around my obsrvatory had to move. In effect by "freezing" the stars, we see the situation as it really is, for they, as I said, are not moving, we are.

Note the motion about the South Celestial Pole (SCP). You can see the location of the Southern Cross, the pointers and two Magellanic Clouds and why these cannot be seen from much of the Northern Hemipshere. Note also the somewhat diffuse blob rising above and right of the leftmost tree. That is the finest globular cluster in the night sky, Omega Centauri.

Did you ever feel like like you were standing on something moving........probably not, as the motion is slow. It was uncanny, when I first produced this video, to see our place and my observatory at Wattle Flat moving with the Earth's rotation as we look at the stationary firmament behind.
I hope you enjoy the sensation that it is not too disconcerting.

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