The stars of the Milky Way galaxy and the New Hampshire countryside offer a spectacular sight in this amazing panorama view captured by a night sky photographer.
Astrophotographer A. Garrett Evans created this image during a night sky photo session on June 1 at the Muster Field Farm Museum in Sutton, New Hampshire. The image seen here combines 12 separate shots into a single panoramic view, a feat that took the photographer more than one try.
"I had taken a similar image the night before but the sky was so dark and the foreground had gotten lost," Evans wrote in an email. "I love the barns at this local farm museum and wanted to try and showcase them a bit more in the image." [Amazing Milky Way Galaxy Photos by Stargazers]
Our host galaxy, the Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy spanning between 100,000 to 120,000 light-years in diameter. It comprises gas, dust and roughly 400 billion stars. The dazzling band we see from Earth is the center portion of the galaxy where a gigantic black hole billions of times the size of the sun resides. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers).
To see more amazing night sky photos submitted by Space.com readers, visit our astrophotography archive.
Editor's note: If you have an amazing night sky photo you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.
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