A yellow glow and purple Milky Way surrounds the Eastern Point Lighthouse in Maine.
The circular panorama was taken by astrophotographer Manish Mamtani on March 8 from Gloucester, Massachusetts.
"It was a peaceful, beautiful clear night and I had the whole place to myself," Mamtani wrote. [How to Photograph the Milky Way in Light Pollution (Photos)]
The Milky Way, our own galaxy containing the solar system, is a barred spiral galaxy with roughly 400 billion stars. The stars, along with gas and dust, appear like a band of light in the sky when seen from Earth. The galaxy stretches between 100,000 to 120,000 light-years in diameter.
This image was created by merging four separate fish eye images looking in different directions. Mamtani uses a Canon 5d Mkiii camera with a Canon 8-15mm fish eye at 8mm, F4, iso 4000 for 30 seconds.
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