Photo: Wally Pacholka
A bad thing about living in a city is the light pollution that prevents us from seeing spectacular sights like this: the Milky Way galaxy, as seen from the False Kiva in the Canyonlands National Park in Utah.
APOD, one of my favorite sites, has the larger pic:
Is there any place in the world you could see a real sight like this? Yes. Pictured above is single exposure image spectacular near, far, and in between. Diving into the Earth far in the distance is part of the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy, taken with a long duration exposure. Much closer, the planet Jupiter is visible as the bright point just to band's left. Closer still are picturesque buttes and mesas of the Canyonlands National Park in Utah, USA, lit by a crescent moon. In the foreground is a cave housing a stone circle of unknown origin named False Kiva. The cave was briefly lit by flashlight during the long exposure. Astrophotographer Wally Pacholka reports that getting to the cave to take this image was no easy trek. Also, mountain lions were a concern while waiting alone in the dark for just the right exposure.
1. that's pretty amazing
2. that looks like a vagina
After you do that, head west to the high and dry regions of the Four Corners area. The Milky Way can seem so bright sometimes that you will think it is illuminating the landscape.
Not. A. Fake.