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image credit & copyright: Angelo Perrone



if you go high enough, you may find yourself on a picturesque perch between the water clouds of the Earth and the star clouds of the Milky Way

such was the case last month for one adventurous alpinist astrophotographer

captured here in the foreground above white clouds are mountain peaks in the Dolomite range in northern Italy

this multi-exposure image was captured from Lagazuoi, one of the Dolomites

hundreds of millions of years ago, the Dolomites were not mountains but islands an ancient sea that rose through colliding tectonic plates

the Dolomites divergent history accounts for its unusually contrasting features, which include jagged crests and ancient marine fossils

high above even the Dolomites, and far in the distance, dark dust lanes streak out from the central plane of our Milky Way Galaxy

the stars and dust are dotted with bright red clouds of glowing hydrogen gas -- such as the Lagoon Nebula just above and to the left of center


































in https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/