An opalescent pendant, the Milky Way cuts a colossal path through the night sky. It is the nebula of our galaxy that has inspired a sense of awe and mystery in humankind throughout history. It was this sense of wonderment that photographer JP Metsavainio hoped to capture with an extreme long-exposure composite image of the Milky Way. But he didn’t want just any picture of the galaxy overhead. The photographer was aiming for something extraordinary. It took Metsavainio 1,250 hours of exposure and nearly 12 years, as reported on his website, to map out in high resolution a vast celestial panorama spanning millions of light-years across. The end result seems to capture some of that glorious wonder. “I can hear music in this composition,” Metsavainio said of his work, “from the high sounds of sparcs and bubbles at left all the way [to] deep and massive sounds at right.” The …