The Milky Way Over Pulpit Rock

Can a picture of the sky be relaxing? A candidate for such a picture might be this image taken only last month from Cape Schank , Victoria , Australia . The frame is highlighted by a dreamlike lagoon, two galaxies, and tens of thousands of stars. The rock cropping on the left may appear from this angle like a human head , but the more famous rock structure is on the far right and known as Pulpit Rock . Across the top of the image runs a distant stream of bright star s and dark dust that is part of the disk of our spiral Milky Way Galaxy . On the right, just above Pulpit Rock, is the Milky Way's small neighboring galaxy the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The bright white object just to the left of the SMC is a globular cluster of stars in the Milky Way known as 47 Tucana . Best Space Images: APOD Editor to Speak at AstroFest Penn State this Friday Night