This surreal composite shows the beauty that can only be seen away from the lights of the "Big City". The summer Milky Way can be seen clearly from this rural farm in upstate NY. The Milky Way is a disc-shaped spiral galaxy containing at least 100 billion stars, one of which is our Sun. Seen from Earth it appears as a faint band of star clouds and illuminated gas nebula crossing the night sky. The Solar System is located in one of the Milky Way's two spiral arms.