How did this work?

[DibblyDobbler]

A lady I am 'friends' with on FB posted this up.

Her text - 'Got bored watching films onboard my flight from Hongkong to Manchester last night so decided to do a spot of Astrophotography Canon 6D f3.5 13seconds'

- so handheld for 13s, out the window of a jet doing 650ish mph... but the stars are (reasonably) sharp?

Confused! by Mike Smith, on Flickr

[DibblyDobbler]

I think what is foxing me is that normally you’d try and get a dead still camera on a tripod to do this rather than one moving at 650mph!!

Physics I guess but still seems odd ...

[DibblyDobbler]

StevieBee said:

650mph? Really?

I thought 550mph was about the norm these days?

I made that bit up - just a guess

[DibblyDobbler]

Colin RedGriff said:

Even when you are stood on the ground - relative to the stars you are actually moving due to the rotation of the earth, If you are on the equator you are actually travelling at about 1000mph, in the UK we are moving at about 600mph

The earth itself is also moving through space

Yes - I think you are right Colin the motion of the plane has to be balanced against the motion of the earth itself... so no real mystery I supposed but just struck me as odd