Photograph of the milky way in the region of the constellation of Scutum. The milky way, the white glow which stretches in a narrow, ill-defined band across the night sky, results from observing the disc shaped galaxy in which we reside at its most dense portions. One of the brightest regions in the milky way is in Scutum. The brightness of the image is due to the combined light of innumerable stars: in some areas this light is obscured by intervening bodies of gas and dust. Photographed from Mashpee, Massachusetts, USA, on September 29, 1975.