Milky Way

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Milky Way Milky Way, Hwang National Park, Zimbabwe

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Milky Way: Planet earth is located within the Milky Way galaxy, a fairly large galaxy (as galaxies go) at over 100,000 light years across.

From a very dark site, the structure shown in this photo is very apparent to the naked eye; unfortunately, there are few dark sites left. Rural Africa can be very dark, as this photo shows.

The mix of dark brown, light brown and very light areas within the Milky Way reflects the fact that earth is within the disc of the galaxy, so we are, essentailly, looking at the galaxy edge on. Click here to see a view from earth of a fairly similar galaxy to ours, showing the dust lanes as part of the galaxy disc.

This was my first "serious" attempt at capturing the Milky Way with a "normal" camera. It has a learning curve, and it's difficult to find truly dark sites.

Technical Information:

This is a single, 30-second image, at f/3.2 and ISO 1600.

Equipment: Canon 5DSR camera wearing a Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 L II lens (shooting at 16mm), sitting atop a simple tripod

Location: Hwang National Park, Zimbabwe

Date: Data acquired 9:34 UTC, July 22, 2017; image posted August 21, 2023