Milky Way Magellanic Clouds and Giant Cactus Incahuasi Island Bolivia
by James Brunker
Title
Milky Way Magellanic Clouds and Giant Cactus Incahuasi Island Bolivia
Artist
James Brunker
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
The Magellanic Clouds above a giant forked cactus on Incahuasi Island in the middle of the Salar de Uyuni in south west Bolivia. The Magellanic Clouds are irregular dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way that can be seen in the southern hemisphere. The upper one is the Large Magellanic Cloud or LMC, below it is the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The yellow and green colours in the sky above the horizon are airglow or nightglow, caused by various processes in the upper atmosphere (including cosmic radiation, ionization of atoms by the sun's radiation and others). The faint lines near the Small Magellanic Cloud are probably satellites.
The Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat, covering 10,582 square km / 4,086 square miles. The huge cactus, which has been lit by a small LED panel, is an Echinopsis atacamensis (pasacana subspecies). They grow in Bolivia and northern Argentina and are common in the region. In the cold dry climate they only grow at approx 1cm a year, the tallest are well over 10m high......
Photograph © James Brunker. Reproduction, transmission or use in any form (print, website, etc) without prior written permission strictly prohibited.
Uploaded
December 26th, 2017
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Comments (3)
Donna Brown
What an awesome photographer James. All those stars. Fav
James Brunker replied:
Thank you Donna, we're lucky to have plenty of places with truly dark skies down here!
VIVA Anderson
Magic, James !! Wonderful,gorgeous,amazing,powerful......and, more!! KUDOS, fv.........VIVA
James Brunker replied:
Thank you VIVA, there are few better places to enjoy the stars and night skies!
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