Michael Wilkins
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Night photograph of the Milky Way's bright core rising diagonally above the stone Church of the Good Shepherd at Lake Tekapo, golden tussock and a low stone wall lit in the foreground.

Core

Lake Tekapo, New Zealand · August 2023

1D X Mark II, 16 millimetres, f 2.8, 20 seconds, ISO 4000

Southern hemisphere, mid-winter. The core sits right overhead.

The galactic core, which from the southern hemisphere in winter climbs almost overhead rather than skulking along the horizon the way it does from Europe. Same church, different night, and a much longer walk in the cold. Foreground lit briefly with a torch during the exposure so the tussock and the stonework read as something rather than falling to pure black.