The electric blue light around the edges of the small isles in this image are bioluminescence, radiating under the dazzling Milky Way in Maine.
Astrophotographer Adam Woodworth took this image at the cliffs of Acadia National Park in Maine on Aug. 17, 2015.
This is a blend of 10 exposures for the sky and 2 foreground exposures. The exposures were then blended in Photoshop to create a single image. All shots were taken with the Nikon D810A camera, and a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 14mm.
"While the glow in the photo is brighter and much more blue than it was in person due to the limitations of human vision in the dark, and the fact that that [the] camera can see more with long exposures, it was still intense to see in person and the photo doesn’t do the experience justice," Woodworth wrote in an email to Space.com.
Earth's host galaxy, the Milky Way, is a barred spiral galaxy seen as a band of light in the night sky. It stretches between 100,000 and 120,000 light-years in diameter. It is estimated that the galaxy has approximately 400 billion stars. At the center of the galaxy lies a gigantic black hole billions of times the size of the sun. [See more amazing photos of our Milky Way Galaxy]
Bioluminescence is caused by microorganisms that produce and emit light.
"The blue light is real, and is just about how my camera captured it, I didn’t do anything to boost the blue. My night vision was adapted enough to see the bright glow in the water as the waves washed over rocks, exciting the dinoflagellates in the water," he added.
To see more amazing night sky photos submitted by Space.com readers, visit our astrophotography archive.
Editor's note: If you have an amazing skywatching photo you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com.
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