star trail
star trail noun: the line of light recorded on a photographic medium when a time exposure is made of a star in the nighttime sky using a camera on a fixed mount, caused by the rotation of the earth during the period of time when the camera's shutter is held open.
Noun
star trail (plural star trails)
- The line of light recorded on a photographic medium when a time exposure is made of a star in the nighttime sky using a camera on a fixed mount, caused by the rotation of the earth during the period of time when the camera's shutter is held open.
- The idea behind photographing star trails is wonderfully simple. Just take your old mechanical camera, point it skyward, and leave the shutter open.2001, Eric DeBolt, “Happy Trails”, in Astronomy, volume 29, number 7, page 74
Forms of star trail
| plural | star trails |
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Questions about star trail
- What does star trail mean?
- Star trail means the line of light recorded on a photographic medium when a time exposure is made of a star in the nighttime sky using a camera on a fixed mount, caused by the rotation of the earth during the period of time when the camera's shutter is held open.
- What part of speech is star trail?
- Star trail is a noun.
- What is the plural of star trail?
- The plural of star trail is star trails.
Words near star trail in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: star trail (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “star trail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/star_trail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.