Milky Way over the walkway

Local photographer and retired doctor Dan Malkovich shared this enhanced photo of the swinging bridge at Jay Cooke State Park with the Milky Way shining overhead, explaining that he had read about the Milky Way, but because of city lights, had never seen it until camping with college friends in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

"I was amazed at the depth and darkness of the night sky, and at the number of stars I could see," he said. "That was 50 years ago, and ever since then the Milky Way has been one of my favorite themes. Unfortunately, light

pollution of the nighttime sky has gotten even worse since then. There are kids today who have never seen a constellation."

According to Malkovich, this picture was an experiment, and he got a little help from photo editing software to make the Milky Way show up so well.

"I had been thinking about how to photograph the Swinging Bridge at night, and I decided to try combining it with an image of the Milky Way," he said. "To my unaided eye, the Milky Way was barely visible, but I was able to enhance the image using software."