APOD: Milky Way over Egyptian Desert (2023 May 10)

[APOD Robot]

Milky Way over Egyptian Desert

Explanation: For ten years the stargazer dreamed of taking a picture like this. The dreamer knew that the White Desert National Park in Egypt's Western Desert is a picturesque place hosting numerous chalk formations sculpted into surreal structures by a sandy wind. The dreamer knew that the sky above could be impressively dark on a clear moonless night, showing highlights such as the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy in impressive color and detail. So the dreamer invited an even more experienced astrophotographer to spend three weeks together in the desert and plan the composite images that needed to be taken and processed to create the dream image. Over three days in mid-March, the base images were taken, all with the same camera and from the same location. The impressive result is featured here, with the dreamer -- proudly wearing a traditional Bedouin galabyia -- pictured in the foreground.

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[zendae]

So impressive it looks like a Midjourney fantasy painting.

[RocketRon]

A magnificent photo. !

On nights such as this, you feel very very very small, but part of an immense universe.
Which may be beyond our understanding, for all eternity ...

[Evangelos Spyromilios]

Its a Jedi !

[cherelynr@gmail.com]

Does anyone know if it would actually look like this if you were standing there?

[De58te]

That's an impressive photograph and I compliment the photograph-ee for posing so still and un-moving for the entire 3 day length. Although I presume they only had to pose for 8 to 10 hours at night in the darkness. What puzzles me though is because the Earth spins why are the stars not blurred over the same length of time? Usually in those sort of long exposures the stars have trails in a circular motion.

[Chris Peterson]

Does anyone know if it would actually look like this if you were standing there?

It would look like the Milky Way from any dark site. A gray band on the sky, and enough skylight to dimly make out the ground and the geologic structures. No color except for low saturation blues and oranges in some of the stars, if you've learned to see it.

[johnnydeep]

Geology question: so, if those "chalk sculptures" are all that's left after the ancient overlying sea that deposited a thick limestone bed over millions of years receded; and they are merely the most resistant agglomerations that survived after the vast mass of the enveloping limestone has been eroded away, where did all that mass go?

[Chris Peterson]

Geology question: so, if those "chalk sculptures" are all that's left after the ancient overlying sea that deposited a thick limestone bed over millions of years receded; and they are merely the most resistant agglomerations that survived after the vast mass of the enveloping limestone has been eroded away, where did all that mass go?

It blew away. It's scattered over thousands or millions of square kilometers.

[Sa Ji Tario]

Certainly, for millions of years there were winds that eroded the rocks and spread the dust across Europe, Africa and America.

[Amos]

The image link has a typo in Amr Abdulwahab's name. *not Abdelwahab

[zendae]

Far more than in my night sky, this photo lets us know how close it is us to us. I wonder tho: is it the central body we are looking at or the body of the Orion/Cygnus Arm we live in? Or perhaps one of the major arms?

[RJN]

The image link has a typo in Amr Abdulwahab's name. *not Abdelwahab

Thanks! Fixed it. - RJN

[orin stepanek]

Kudos to the photographer; great photo!

;
I like this one also!

This kitty pretty bright!

[Spif]

Does anyone know if it would actually look like this if you were standing there?

The sky shot looks separate ... the whole thing is a composited image. The sky looks like a long exposure tracking shot with triple filter for the colors, I presume. Meanwhile the ground shot was probably only a second or two exposure?

[hypatia]

Muad'Dib

[zendae]

I didn't know so many arms could be seen:

"The structures of our galaxy are as follows-
-The centre of our galaxy resides in sagittarius, not far from M6, but is obscured from view due to the dust clouds of the sagittarius-Carina spiral arm which is the next spiral arm in from our own.
-We can see part of the central bulge in sagittarius- especially in the large sagittarius star cloud (Baades window).
-We can also see part of the next spiral arm towards the hub, which is visible thanks to a window through the gas clouds in the sagittarius arm, which is known as messier 24.
-When we look along the milkyway from scutum to Carina, we are looking along the length of the sagittarius arm, the scutum starcloud being the part of the arm that winds its way towards the core( the direction of galactic rotation), and towards Carina, we are looking into the arm as it trails away from the core.
- When we look towards Cygnus we are looking into our spiral arm( not a full arm but a spur arm known as the orion spur.) as it wraps its way towards the hub.
-When we look out towards Canis major we are looking along our arm as it trails away from the core.
Looking towards Aquila, we are looking at the interarm space between the sagittarius arm and our own arm as they curve into the hub.
-Looking towards vela and Puppis we see the interarm space between the sagittarius arm and our own arm as they trail away from the hub..
-When facing Taurus-Auriga, we are looking through our arm towards the galactic anti centre (180 degrees from the hub). The milkyway between orion and perseus is broader here because we are closer to it.
-In Cassiopia, there is another window through which the next spiral arm out from ours can be viewed( the perseus arm)."