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In a starry night of Alps the Milky Way shows its magnificent beauty above snow-covered mountains in the state of Tyrol, western Austria. Austria is one of the few European countries where it’s still possible to see truly dark skies, thanks to high mountains and low population. The photographer was in a dark Alpine forest some 30 km south of Innsbruck. Move the slider on the image to see the name of brighter stars and notable objects and to compare their huge variety of distances from us (noted in light years). Note how the red supergiant star Antares (in Scorpius) shining above the Alps is in fact 1000 million million times further than those mountain peaks! © Babak Tafreshi

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comments (6)


  • Christoph Malin Reply

    Excellent work!

    May 17, 2011 at 12:30 pm
  • Rainer Reply

    Perfect – Congratulations Babak!
    Babak, from where did you take the picture?
    Greetings from Hall in Tirol. Rainer

    May 17, 2011 at 2:28 pm
  • Babak Tafreshi Reply

    Rainer, pleased to hear from you. You have the best hotel on the planet! This location is a forest road in Stubai Alps 30km southwest Innsbruck. I was with Christoph Malin who know this place very well.

    May 18, 2011 at 2:08 am
  • Herbert Raab Reply

    Wonderful Image! 🙂

    June 4, 2011 at 11:09 am
  • Nihil-detkh Reply

    Magicae.

    June 14, 2011 at 2:30 am
  • Negar Najafi Reply

    Thanks alot for this beutiful picture.
    It is very AMAZING!!!!!!

    June 20, 2011 at 8:22 am

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