Milky Way arching over Caldera de Taburiente, La Palma

Milky Way arching over Caldera de Tamburiente on the island of La Palma. At a latitude of 28 deg N, the core of our galaxy rises 22 degrees higher in the sky than it ever does viewed from southern England. The caldera is 8 km wide and 1.5 km deep, formed when a huge volcano collapsed around 500,000 years ago and was subsequently eroded. Its northern rim reaches 2,400m above sea level, above the clouds that often form over the coast at night. Caldera de Taburiente National Park is a starlight reserve, protected from light pollution and probably the best place in Europe to photograph the Milky Way.

This panorama was created from nine panels taken with a 14mm lens in portrait orientation. Each panel comprises 11 exposures of 15 seconds at f/2 for the sky and one exposure of 8 minutes at f/2.8 for the foreground. Processed in Lightroom, stacked in Sequator and stitched in PTGui. Total 97 minutes exposure time and several hours processing.