A blazing meteor disintegrates across a glittering night sky with planet Venus and the Milky Way galaxy beaming brightly over a lighthouse in Maine in this stunning image recently sent to Space.com.
Astrophotographer Mike Taylor took this great shot, which is one frame from a 2.5-hour time-lapse captured on March 4 at the Marshall Point Lighthouse in Port Clyde, Maine.
"A meteor burns up in the atmosphere with a nice green tail next to the tower, making a triangle in the sky, which includes Venus and the core of the Milky Way," Taylor told Space.com in an email. [More amazing March night sky photos by amateurs]
Taylor used a Nikon D600 camera and 14-24mm @ 14mm, f/3.2 – 30 seconds – ISO 3200 – WB Kelvin 3570; to capture the image. The image was processed through Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CS5.
The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy comprising roughly 400 billion stars and stretching between 100,000 and 120,000 light-years in diameter. A massive black hole — billions of times the size of the sun — lies at the center of the galaxy. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers).
To see more amazing night sky photos submitted by Space.com readers, visit our astrophotography archive.
Editor's note: If you have an amazing night sky photo or video that you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, please send images and comments to contact managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.
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