Milky Way Galaxy, Eerie Airglow Paint Night Sky Amazing Colors (Photo)
The horizon glows a haunting green, silhouetting trees on the Isle of Wight as the band of the Milky Way shines overhead in this spectacular photo recently sent in to SPACE.com by a veteran photographer.
Night sky photographer Chad Powell captured this beautiful image, which he aptly calls "Too Many Stars To Count," on Oct. 4 using a Canon 6D camera (25 seconds, f/2.8, 20mm, and ISO 4000).
"The sky was so bright this particular evening from both the Milky Way and green airglow," Powell told SPACE.com in an email. "Due to this, a very strong silhouette lined the foreground and trees in the distance." [See more amazing Milky Way galaxy photos]
Our host galaxy, the Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy comprising roughly 400 billion stars. It spans between 100,000 to 120,000 light-years in diameter. 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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