The stars of our Milky Way galaxy shimmer in this amazing night sky view from New York's scenic Adirondack Park captured by a photographer after a long hike out to a secluded lake.
Astrophotographer Corey Rondeau took this image on August 20, 2014 at Pharoah Lake shortly after midnight.
"A four-hour hike led myself, fiancé and our dogs away from technology and into the wilderness where we found a secluded spot along Pharaoh Lake, one of the many in the Adirondack's," Rondeau wrote. "This was our view each night which came paired with a chorus of loons to serenade us to sleep beneath the Milky Way and the wondrous beauty of the heavens above." [Stunning Photos of the Milky Way by Stargazers]
The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy spanning between 100,000 to 120,000 light-years in diameter. Roughly 400 billion stars populate the galaxy. The dazzling band we see from Earth is the center portion of the galaxy where a gigantic black hole billions of times the size of the sun resides. 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.
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