Iranian photo selected as NASA’s July picture of the day

‘Teimareh Petroglyphs and Star Trails’ by Babak Amin-Tafreshi

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has selects a picture by Iranian photographer Babak Amin-Tafreshi as one of its July pictures of the day.

The star trail photograph which was selected as the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day for July 12, 2012, shows ancient petroglyphs of Iran’s Teimareh Valley located in the country’s Zagros Mountains.

Engraved in rocks, the petroglyphs are abundant in the valley and depict hunters and animals as etched by prehistoric artists about 6,000 years ago.

In the night sky above are star trails etched by the rotation of planet Earth during the long composite exposure made with a modern digital camera.

Born in 1978, Babak Amin-Tafreshi is an amateur astronomer, photographer, and science journalist.

He is the creator and director of The World at Night (TWAN), an international program in which photographers from around the world capture images of night skies as seen above notable landmarks of the planet.

Amin-Tafreshi is also a member of the board of advisors of Astronomers without Borders who won the Lennart Nilsson Award for the best scientific photography.

The center of the star trail arcs in Amin-Tafreshi’s photo shows the North Celestial Pole (NCP), the extension of Earth's axis into space.

Polaris, the North Star, leaves the bright, short, stubby trail closest to the NCP, but when the petroglyphs were carved, Polaris would have made a long arc through the night.

Since the Earth's rotation axis processes like a wobbling top, 6,000 years ago the NCP was near the border of the constellations Draco and Ursa Major, some 30 degrees from its current location in Earth's sky.

The NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is originated, written, coordinated, and edited since 1995 by professional astronomers Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell.

The APOD archive contains the largest collection of annotated astronomical images online.

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