HOW FAR ARE THE STARS AWAY FROM EARTH?

Short duration night time lapse photo

Slow down the shutter speed sufficiently (1-2 seconds at most) of your camera mounted on a tripod or resting on a steady surface and take a snapshot of moving car traffic at night.

The resultant photo, like the above, should show the headlights as streaks.  Observe that foreground (closer) objects have longer streaks than background objects (further away) in terms of relative distance from the camera’s vantage point.

Perform the same, but with a sufficiently long time lapse setting for shutter speed with the camera shot of the night time sky on a clear night (30 minutes or more) and it will produce similar results.

One intrepid truth seeker, Chris Van Matre, has done his own investigation into the question “How Far Are the Stars Away From Earth?” using the above technique to examine the relative motion of stars in the 24 hour rotating Celestial Sphere to a nearby object, the Moon.  The photo below shows a time lapse of the stars and Moon.  (The Moon is the thick brighter streak toward the bottom right of the image.)

Short time lapse night time photo of the Celestial Stars and Moon motion

It would seem, based cursory inspection of this photographic evidence, that the stars are indeed closer than claimed by Astronomy’s fantastical light year distances.  This paired to the knowledge that Stellar Parallax is nil, tends to reinforce the assertion that all objects seen in the Celestial Heavens are very close by.

While not exhaustive, more peer review research using this time lapse technique and other methods with replicatable results hopefully will form the basis of a broader consensus so that a firm empirical based scientific conclusion can be reached.  Your thoughts?– Dietrich