It might look like a drunken rainbow, but you’re actually looking at a view of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, as its light gets refracted by our atmosphere. Usually when you gaze upwards, the stars in the sky appear to twinkle. In fact, that’s a results of the light passing through our skies, which causes the rays to be refracted and change colour subtly by the time we see them.
But this image shows two seconds of twinkling, captured in one image. It was created by amateur astrophotographer Syed Roshaan who used his telescope and a DSLR camera to capture it. There’s been no tweaking other than brightness and contrast. Isn’t it pretty? [New Scientist]