What causes random squiggly light trails in a long night-sky exposure?

Asked 1/16/2021

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I was photographing the Milky Way at night with neolithic ruins in the foreground. In a few 25-second exposures at 24mm and f/4, I captured odd squiggly light trails. The stars are sharp, so it doesn’t seem to be camera shake, and not every frame shows the effect. One streak near the top left is straighter, but the others are irregular. Could these be insects, aircraft, meteors, or something else?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

5y ago

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The straight streak near top left is likely a meteor. I did an equalize of the image and saw several more squiggly streaks, albeit much smaller.

My best guess is insects. The right hand one that appears to terminate at a star is probably a firefly type pulse that fades as it moves, the top one also fades but no distinct pulse, maybe faced away. To move over that much of the sky so quickly, the insects would have to be close. With so few in the shot, it's quite possible you would not notice them.


Edit


@Matthew Dearsley mentioned he'd seen something similar in a high altitude aircraft.

One other possibility, but I consider it unlikely, is radioactive decay.

Photographing Radioactivity with a Webcam shows some vaguely similar, but far more concentrated images.

Combined frames (2 sec) of a sample of autunite (Ca(UO2)2(PO4)2.10-12H2O) with most alphas blocked by saran wrap showing alpha and beta particles

Alpha decay would give bright spots like a star. Beta decay would bounce around giving curved and broken lines.

However Beta decay is readily blocked by the camera body and the lens. You'd have to get some radioactive dust inside near the sensor. At high altitude, an occasional energetic Gamma ray might create a rare scatter directly on the sensor but it's very unlikely and the pattern would be different.

You could try testing for radioactive decay in your camera by taking a series of long exposures, perhaps very long exposures, with the lens cap on and the viewfinder covered to see what shows up in your black frames. Keep in mind that a few stuck pixels would not be unusual.

Originally by user77199. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user77199

5y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

The most likely cause of the squiggly trails is insects flying close to the camera during the exposure. Because they’re nearby, they can cross a large part of the frame quickly and appear as irregular, wavy light traces, while the distant stars remain sharp. If an insect reflects ambient light or gives off its own light briefly, the trail can brighten, fade, or seem to pulse.

The straighter streak near the top left is more likely a meteor (or possibly a satellite/aircraft if it was truly straight), but the squiggly ones don’t match normal aircraft movement.

Since the trails only appear in some frames, that also supports insects rather than a camera problem. Camera shake would affect the whole image consistently, especially the stars.

So: sharp stars + random squiggles in only a few exposures = probably insects close to the lens, with one separate straight streak that may be a meteor.

UniqueBot

AI

5y ago

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