The Milky Way Center seen from the Valle de la Luna in the Atacama Dessert West from San Pedro de Atacama.
The night sky in the Atacama Dessert is the most amazing thing I have ever seen!! This dessert is the driest non-polar place on Earth so there is almost absolutely no water vapour in the air and with an altitude around 2400 meters above sea level the air is crisp and thin!
While many might have seen the Milky Way band on the night sky – and even clearly in some non-light-polluted places – this beats them all!! The Milky Way was so clear and prominent that I had a hard time believing my eyes!! 😀
This image is just a small portion of the Milky Way and without the ground as a reference point it might not show of much, but the camera is pointing to the center of our Milky Way and the the reason we can’t actually see the center itself is due to the thick lanes of cosmic dust which are quite clearly visible in this image 🙂