Once upon a time when I served as an area science fair judge I encountered a similar (though less artistic) photograph. The student's hypothesis was that the North Star was precisely in line with Earth's axis of rotation – located directly above Earth's north pole.

As with Anthony's image on APOD, the student's image showed a small arc for the North Star's trail. He concluded, based on his own photographic evidence, that his hypothesis was correct! After providing due praise for the project and the photo, I pointed out that the North Star was not precisely above Earth's north pole – and his own photograph provided proof. The student's teacher, who just happened to be nearby, came over and tried to defend the student's conclusion by pointing out that the North Star was in the center of the pattern of star trails. . .

Does the sky revolve around the Earth? The answer depends on one's perspective. A viable argument could be made in support of either a 'yes' or a 'no' answer with a different set of physical laws supporting each position. That being said, the physical laws appear to be far simpler if we assume the 'no' answer to be the correct answer.

OTOH: If the sky revolves around the Earth, then everything more distant than Neptune is exceeding the 'local' speed of light. Perhaps there's hope after all for superluminal space travel ;-)

Sketcher,
To sketch is to see.

On Saturday, July 16, 2016 at 9:18:52 AM UTC-6, Razzmatazz wrote:
Today's APOD would have you believe so:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Enjoy :^))