Oh-rion!

We arose a little earlier in the morning than ususal, and twilight had not yet begun to taint the sky. Orion, the hunter, gazed downward at us through a gap in the trees, posing perfectly for a photo. I just had to capture the moment, so I pointed the cell phone camera his direction, held it as steady as possible, and it produced this image from from 3-seconds of exposures. The camera automatically stabilized and stacked multilple short images and compled much more behind-the -scenes electronic magic to produce this shot.

Not long ago to get such an image would have required a SLR camera with an equitoral mount properly aligned with the north pole. It would have taken several shots to bracket the best exposure, properly focus, and after several attempts, maybe get a reasonable image. With further careful processing, it might have been possible to get as good, or possibly even better image than the one above. However, that would have taken an hour or more of work plus nondescript mutterings and utterings, while the cell phone image took only seconds.

People may be quick bemoan what they see as the evil effects of technology but it also has its upside.

#orion #stars #camera