Taranaki Stars

'This is an image of the Milky Way and the two Magellanic Clouds above Mount Taranki, a 2500m active stratovolcano, on New Zealand's North Island. The two Magellanic Clouds are dwarf galaxies over 150,000 light years away that can only be seen in the Southern Hemisphere's night sky. After a tough hike up to this viewpoint, we spent a good eight hours watching the clouds thin, the sun set and the Milky Way appear. By midnight, the sky was full of stars but a sliver of moon was just bright enough to light up the incredible landscape in front of us. Just before we started the hike back down, I took this vertical panorama made up of four 25-second exposures. They were stitched together during post-processing.'

James Orr

Camera; Canon 70D. Lens; Tokina 11-16 f2.8.