Happy autumn, my Northern Hemisphere friends! Happy spring to any Southern Hemisphere folks. :]

Equinox.

Isn’t this a great photograph? It’s by Juan Carlos Casado, and it’s a really fantastic time-lapse photo from last year’s equinox:

This unusual time-lapse image shows the rotation of the Earth from the vantage point of Ecuador on the day of the Equinox in 2010. As the Sun passed directly overhead then sank into the west it burned a bright path across the middle of the sky in the long-exposure image. Then, as the sky darkened, the stars became visible, the Earth’s spin making them trace their own circular paths about the north and south celestial poles. This picture combines daytime and night-time photography and uses the equatorial location to show both northern and southern hemispheres of the sky together.

Pretty cool, right? Check out more gorgeous astronomy photographs here.

What are you doing to welcome autumn? I plan on baking cinnamon buns this weekend… :)