Milky Way Galactic Core Rising Over Coastal Hills
Sunday, June 14th, 2026 at 5:51:30 AM · 2026/Astrophotography
The Milky Way galactic core rises in spectacular detail over the silhouetted coastal hills in this wide-field nightscape captured with a Canon EOS R6 Mark II and RF15-35mm F2.8 L IS USM at 15mm. The image reveals the dense star clouds, dust lanes, and nebulosity of the galactic core in rich amber, gold, and violet tones, arcing across nearly the full width of the frame. A warm glow of light pollution or twilight hugs the horizon on the left, providing a subtle contrast to the deep blue-black of the upper sky populated with thousands of individual stars. This untracked fixed-tripod composition was achieved through a star-aligned median sky stack of 25 × 8-second subs at ISO 3200 (3.3 minutes total integration), with AI background extraction via GraXpert and a composited sharp foreground using a hard-edge horizon mask. The resulting image covers an extraordinary ~137.5 × 91.7 degree field of view, showcasing both the technical ambition and artistic merit of modern astrolandscape processing.
Chronologically Adjacent
