A stunning photograph, courtesy of EarthSky.
I hope that I can republish this photograph. I shall provide all the details.
ooOOoo
Milky Way over Isola delle Correnti
On 07/17/2026 11:00 pm by Enrico Modica | Website | Portopalo di Capopassero, Sicily, Italy
The photograph was captured at approximately 11:00 PM (23:00 CEST) on July 17, 2026, near Isola delle Correnti, the southernmost point of Sicily, Italy, where the Ionian Sea meets the Mediterranean Sea.
The image depicts the Galactic Centre of the Milky Way rising above the island, with the lighthouse beam reflecting across the sea and naturally guiding the viewer’s eye toward the star-filled sky. The bright central bulge of our Galaxy lies in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, approximately 27,000 light-years from Earth. Also visible are several prominent summer constellations, including Scorpius (with the bright red star Antares), Ophiuchus and Aquila (with Altair).
Camera: Nikon D750 (full-frame DSLR)
Lens: Samyang 14 mm f/2.8
Mount: Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro (star tracker)
Sky
Camera: Nikon D750
Lens: Samyang 14 mm
Star tracker used
30 stacked exposures
ISO 800
Aperture: f/3.2
Exposure time: 45 seconds per frame
Foreground
4 untracked exposures
ISO 400
Aperture: f/4
Exposure time: 30 seconds per frame
Processing
The sky images were calibrated, aligned, and stacked using DeepSkyStacker to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. The RAW files were then developed in Adobe Lightroom Classic, while the final image was completed in Adobe Photoshop, where the tracked sky and the static foreground were blended and refined to achieve a natural representation of the scene while preserving the finest details of the Galactic Centre.
ooOOoo
It is a stunning image.
It takes me back many years to when I was living on Songbird of Kent, a sloop, in Cyprus, and using the summers to cruise. I will never forget the night skies at sea, far from lights from the land.
Beautiful!
Learning from Dogs 
Gorgeous!
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Thank you, John. It really is a stunning sight.
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Dear Paul and John,
Like you, I adore the Milky Way. However, I love something else even more. Please allow me to explain as follows.
Have you ever thought about leaving Earth, to which your whole life and being have been attached? Let me further clarify why someone as rational, educated and clear-minded as SoundEagle🦅 could even entertain asking the question of whether one would choose to stay on Earth or go with the aliens as Roy Neary (played by Richard Dreyfuss) did in the movie “Close Encounter of the Third Kind”. The choice for me would be the latter for two major reasons. The first reason is that the human species is so flawed that there are no long-lasting peace and redemption. Given the escalating social problems and ongoing environmental crises on Earth, it would be easy for some of us to imagine that we could be citizens in the kind of morally and technologically advanced societies portrayed in Star Trek. Unfortunately, we were born several centuries too early. Sometimes one might indeed feel that it would be very nice to join Roy Neary and to leave the Earth in that giant mothership for good so as to achieve or awaken interstellar or (inter)galactic Spiritual Revolutionaries!
The reason is also enhanced by my appreciation of the movie “Close Encounter of the Third Kind” for the following compelling grounds on various levels and kinds of consideration, including those pertaining to the music in the movie, as well as what the musical collaboration entailed for a period of seven years, quite unheard of then and even now for any movies, whether they are sci-fi or not. Therefore, unlike other composers, John Williams had a great deal of time to create the “masterpiece”, including the use of extended techniques usually reserved for avant-garde serious music such as that of Iannis Xenakis. Of course, in the music for “Close Encounter of the Third Kind”, there is the famous five-note motif, plus the clever inclusion of “When You Wish Upon a Star” by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington for the 1940 Disney animated film “Pinocchio” to convey the monumentality of inter(galactic)species communication. Yet, there is also the two-note tritone motif. On the whole, the orchestral rendition of the music is (much) more sophisticated and extended than those of other film music composed by Williams, never mind that I am also a composer who graduated from a Conservatorium of Music at a university, though I also possess other degrees gained in totally different disciplines.
The second reason is that we spent years accumulating knowledge and wisdom only to see our corporeal form disintegrating in mere decades. This sentiment or lament plus the longing for true transcendence are acutely expressed in two long rhyming poems in the said post.
Therefore, both the film and music resonate with me in multiple, synergistic ways. Off we go in a UFO 🛸. . . . . You are very welcome to take an intergalactic trip with me boldly Flying Away One Day as a Stranger from Milky Way in an animation-intensive multimedia post entitled “🌌🚀 One Day We’ll Fly Away ✈️💫✨”, available at
Indeed, I would love to fly away, even leaving the Milky Way behind…..
I would like to inform you that this musical, animated and mixed media post must be viewed in situ on my blog (not via the WordPress Reader) on a desktop or laptop computer with a large screen, given that it contains intricate graphical designs, advanced styling and multimedia components plus dynamic animations all the way from the top to the bottom of the entire post. Please enjoy flying away with me!
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle🦅
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Dear SoundEagle,
What a comprehensive reply. I will do my best to answer.
I was born in London, some six months before the end of WWII in Europe. That makes me 81 at the moment.
I adore the clear, night skies, and followed the space exploits of the Americans with great interest, I believe that I will die in Oregon, where me, and my darling wife, live. It is a beautiful, rural property in Merlin. I am content.
I fear for the younger generation. However, with falling birth rates, increased awareness of global warming, especially the rise in the temperatures of the oceans (up by 1 deg C), and the general increased pace of positive change, I think the human population will survive.
Of course, this human population will evolve, that’s natural. Evolution is a constant process. Just like birth and death, they are natural processes. In fact, humans have short lives, relatively speaking. We are not conscious of the world before we are born and we are not conscious of the world after our death.
We live on 13 acres. I feed the deer in the early morning. Over the years they have become friends, they come within a couple of feet from my legs as I pour the ‘COB’ from the bucket. It fills me with joy every morning.
I clicked on your link but struggled to understand what I saw. It was too much for me to assimilate. However, I admired your efforts in producing your blog.
Those are my thoughts.
Best wishes, Paul.
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Dear Paul,
Thank you for your reply and for describing your rural life and your delight in feeding the deer. Yes, we humans have such short lifespans. Many sci-fi films have pushed the frontiers and envelops of existential forms, issues and possibilities. In this regard, artificial intelligence (AI), the domain of nonorganic sentient beings and intelligent machines with advanced autonomy and consciousness has many implications for the future generations, who will increasingly mesh their lives with not just the computer user interface but also the human-machine interface. One can be amply taken by the futuristic scenarios in Philip K Dick’s novels containing advanced and thought-provoking ideas. The issues and implications of the others as “The Machines” are very multifaceted and complex. In a very palpable way, the movie “Blade Runner” has posted some sobering questions and possible scenarios.
Just as I welcome multiculturalism and plurality, I really wish that I could have some “artificial” but sentient humans or robots too, something like Commander Data, the Bicentennial Man, Rachel in Blade Runner, or other advanced automata as seen in Sci-Fi movies, as long as they are free of the usual human frailties, follies, deceptions and irrationality, if not immortality.
I would be very grateful if you could be so kind as to submit a comment to my said post entitled “🌌🚀 One Day We’ll Fly Away ✈️💫✨” as a token of your visit and feedback for posterity. Please feel free to copy and paste your previous reply to my earlier comment as part of your forthcoming comment to be submitted to the comments section of the post, to which your said reply clearly pertains and also belongs. You may indeed expand on your comment if you have additional matters to convey about the post and any salient aspects of its contents. Thank you in anticipation.
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle🦅
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