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Birthday · May 25, 2015

The Galaxy Tree

May 25, 2015

Billions of years of cosmic evolution — the birth and death of stars, the slow coalescence of planets, the patient unfolding of life — all...

The Galaxy Tree

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APOD published May 25, 2015. 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 · May 25, 2015

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 earlier this month and processed to digitally enhance the Milky Way.

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

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