Galactic Archway - photography by Jacques Loveridge

ARTIST STATEMENT: I wanted to convey the size and scale of some of the objects in our night sky. The Milky Way’s great spiral arms wrap around the whole celestial sphere, however the ground obscures half of this. On the right of this image is the Core of the Milky Way, giving off a yellowish glow in the south. The Milky Way then arches across almost 180 degrees to the north/ northeast passing overhead with a dense region of stars in the constellation of Cygnus. This image took a 9-panel panorama, composed of 9 images with a 1-minute exposure time which, when stitched together, creates a wide enough field of view to see the whole Milky Way arch. The Milky Way is not actually arched like this, but with this wide field of view either the ground or the Milky Way ends up distorted creating an arch shape. ABOUT THE ARTIST: This piece is Shortlisted in the 2022 Sovereign Art Foudation Students Prize in Guernsey. Jacques created this piece while a student at Blanchelande College.