Ecliptic Camera

night · 2026-08-25
2026-10-132026-10-122026-10-112026-10-102026-10-092026-10-082026-10-072026-10-062026-10-052026-10-042026-10-032026-10-022026-10-012026-09-30

IMX708 Wide (v3w)

The deep sky

1×
eclipticam v3w · night of 25 Aug 2026
Each 10 minute window's frames registered on the drifting stars and averaged, then the static scene's background removed: the faintest stars on a clean dark sky. · full-res

1How dark the night was

471 frames, 21:10 to 04:59 (London time). Darkest sky 4.84 stops above black.

343 / 471
frames in star trails / captured
4.84
darkest sky, stops above black
2125
bad pixels
per-frame sky brightness
eclipticam v3w · night of 25 Aug 2026
Sky brightness of every frame (log₂: one stop is twice the light). Dusk and dawn are the slopes at each end; cloud shows as a bump. The star-trail stack uses only frames within 30% of the darkest 10 minutes, so twilight and cloud are left out of it. Left out is not thrown away: those frames still go into the videos.

2What the camera saw

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eclipticam v3w · night of 25 Aug 2026
The raw night: a 10 minute stack sliding on 1 minute per video frame. Dusk, cloud, aircraft and dawn all show here, five seconds for the whole night. · full-res

3Stars held still

1×
eclipticam v3w · night of 25 Aug 2026
Each 10 minute window undistorted and shifted with the sky's drift, so the 60 s streaks stack into one sharp, bright streak. · full-res

4The whole night in one frame

The whole night in one frame
eclipticam v3w · night of 25 Aug 2026
The brightest value each pixel reached all night: every star draws its trail across the night.