With over 3 hours of photographic exposure in a northerly direction, the eye seems to be sucked into the vortex of this string of stars. As the Earth rotated around its axis during these 3 hours, the stars traced 1/8th of a circle around the polar star visible at the center.
On Earth, the Parmelan refuge (1825m) is illuminated by a gibbous moon on this fine January night.