"The Constellation Cancer -
The Crab"

- The stars of the night sky have been divided and mapped since ancient times. With this mapping the imaginative shapes and legends of the constellations were created.

This photo of Cancer shows, enlarged in their true color, the main "naked eye" stars that make up the shape of the constellation. Also in this photo is the beautiful star cluster known as "The Beehive Cluster" right in the center of the constellation.

A photographic technique was used that we call a "motion stop sequence" to get the long exposure of the constellation and a sharp exposure of the trees in the same photograph. Briefly, the camera must accurately track the movement of the stars across the sky over the hour long exposure to keep them from smearing on the film. Then a new exposure is taken with the tracking drive turned off to capture the "Earth scene" and keep it from smearing on the film. Then the two are merged together so the final photograph shows both components clearly as they looked to the observer in "real time". -