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Birthday · December 30, 2018

The Galaxy Tree

December 30, 2018

On your birthday, the Earth completed another orbit — 584 million miles traveled since your last celebration.

The Galaxy Tree

A little universe, just for you

Your date.
Ready to give.

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APOD published December 30, 2018. Credit: C�sar Vega Toledano ; Rollover Annotation: Judy Schmidt. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.

Behind the image

The Galaxy Tree

Original APOD · December 30, 2018

First came the trees. In the town of Salamanca, Spain, the photographer noticed how distinctive a grove of oak trees looked after being pruned. Next came the galaxy. The photographer stayed up until 2 am, waiting until the Milky Way Galaxy rose above the level of a majestic looking oak. From this carefully chosen perspective, dust lanes in the galaxy appear to be natural continuations to branches of the tree. Last came the light. A flashlight was used on the far side of the tree to project a silhouette. By coincidence, other trees also appeared as similar silhouettes across the relatively bright horizon. The featured image was captured as a single 30-second frame in 2015 and processed to digitally enhance the Milky Way. Free Download: 2019 APOD Calendar (v5)

Image credit: C�sar Vega Toledano ; Rollover Annotation: Judy Schmidt

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