| Milky Way arch panorama, with the Milky Way, appropriately over the Milk River, as it winds through the sandstone rock formations and cliffs of Writing-on-Stone (Aisinai'pi) Provincial Park in southern Alberta, Canada. The Milk River is one of the few rivers in Canada that flow south into the Missouri River watershed and so into the Gulf of Mexico. It is flowing from right to left here, from west to east. Aisinai'pi is a sacred site to the Blackfoot First Nations and the sandstone cliffs are carved with petroglyphs recording life and historic incidents on the plains. In Blackfoot skylore the Milky Way is 'Makoyoohsokoyi, ' the Wolf Trail, named for the legendary wolves who taught humans to live together in harmony. Adding to the sky colours and the red nebulas (hydrogen gas clouds) along the Milky Way are green bands of natural airglow, particularly bright to the east at centre and what I think is aurora, not airglow, adding the magenta glow to the northeast at left. The ground is illuminated only by starlight, but the long exposures used bring out details and colours in the ground and sky that the unaided eye would not have seen, but which are nevertheless present. For example, the airglow and aurora was not visible to the eye except as a general brightening of the sky. This was May 25, 2025, between midnight to 12:30 am, when the centre of the Galaxy area in Sagittarius and Scorpius was rising in the southeast at far right down the river, but the Milky Way was still low enough across the sky to be contained within the camera frame for an 'arch' panorama. | |
| Licence : | Droits gérés |
| Crédit: | Science Photo Library / VWPics / Alan Dyer |
| Taille de l’image : | 11030 px × 3169 px |
| Model Release : | Non requis |
| Property Release : | Non requis |
| Restrictions : | - |