A photo by park scientist Dan Duriscoe was chosen as one of NASA's “Astronomy Pictures of the Year” for 2007.
The image captures 360 degrees of Death Valley's Racetrack Playa, the surrounding landscape and the Milky Way Galaxy arching over it in spectacular brilliance.
Dan is a physical scientist and a member of the NPS Night Sky Team stationed in Death Valley National Park. A large scale print of the award winning photo is on permanent display in the resources management headquarters building at Cow Creek.
Looking back over the past year, the editors of the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) decided to list twelve of the more memorable images that had been posted to their website during 2007. There was no shortage of breathtaking images to choose from – robotic cameras orbiting Mars and rolling around its surface, the Cassini spacecraft over Saturn, space telescopes exploring the cosmos, and ground-based imaging with increasingly sophisticated hardware and software.
The editors tried to diversify the selection to include spectacular pictures from several different categories. Twelve pictures of the year are highlighted on the website in the order in which they appeared chronologically. The editors say the selection process was very difficult and in the end more than a little arbitrary. In fact, of these twelve pictures, only one was unanimously selected.
Due to formatting constraints, the above image does not do full justice to the image. Go to the following link and scroll down several images to see a full-size version of this photo http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/apoys2007.html
