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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.

Trees, Sky, Galactic Eye

Explanation: Is beauty in the eye of this beholder? Earlier this month, over Runion Island in the Indian Ocean , a playful photographer with an eye for the sky took eight images and composed the above intriguing picture . The full fisheye frame shows everything above the horizon , including a lamp-illuminated landscape around the edges, and the zenith of the sky directly overhead. The image , however, may be more than beautiful -- it may also be a scavenger hunt . Can you find the photographer's tent, the slope of a volcano (active Piton de la Fournaise ), a picturesque shoreline, and the lights of the nearby town ( Saint Philippe )? One remarkable feature of the above image is that its center contains the very center of our Milky Way Galaxy .

Date June 29, 2010
Credit Credit & Copyright: Luc Perrot
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.