Hey all,
I was digging through some subexposures of the Iris Nebula when I came across this image.
At first I thought this aquiggly star trailing was due to bad tracking, but when I looked closer I noticed some trails were going left whilst others were going right. Some also appear to have a large squiggly shape whilst others are (nearly) straight. I’ve never seen this before and can’t imagine how this is possible.
Anyone else come across a similar thing? I’m curious what caused this!
Looks like vibrations. Possibly from a camera fan.
It looks like it was squiggly at first, settled in one place for a couple of seconds, and then quickly snapped back to a different position, in which it remained for the rest of the exposure. Only the brighter stars are squiggly since the dimmer ones didn’t get enough exposure, and the quick snapping made the trails discontinuous.
You can actually see how the trail of the Iris nebula and it’s “clone” are connected if you look hard enough.
Just noticed it’s a VERY large shift, which explains why there are trails in 2 directions and why some are squiggly and others not. The camera was simply moving too fast in the center of the trail to capture anything 🫣
So nevermind!
Clear skies everyone