Nights in shining panorama: Stunning images of dark skies seen from Earth revealed in global photo competition

Frozen in time, these scenes of pin-pricks in the night sky - as seen from Earth - look almost too surreal to be true.
But the ten images below, remarkable for their beauty, were in fact captured by photographers - and have been named the most vibrant and stunning photos taken across the world in the last year.
The competition, Best Night-Sky Pictures 2011, was organised by The World At Night and highlights just how incredible our planet is once the sun goes down.

Galactic view from planet earth: The central bulge of the galaxy - the brightest region in the Milky Way - is captured in the starry night of Australia by Alex Cherne

The organisers' criteria included a request for 'landscape astrophotography', or pictures of landmarks against the night sky.

Their aim is to bridge the gap between the natural and man-made worlds and the images and results of the competition can be seen at www.twanight.org
Among the winners was an image by Thomas Kurat that won the contest's Against The Lights category.

Stunning: 'Isfahan Milky Way' by Mehdi Momenzadeh scooped Second-prize in the Against the Lights category. The arc of the Milky Way rises above central Iran, and it is faded away in the northeast by the lights of the historic city of Isfaha

Bright skies: Ben Canales, won fifth place in the Against the Lights category with his portrayal of the clouds above an Oregon landscape, left. Meanwhile Grant Kaye won fifth place in the Beauty of the Night Sky category with Startrails Above an Alien Lake, right, taken at Mono Lake, California

It features twinkling stars over the Austrian Alps competing with the glare from the mist-covered town of nearby Lake Traunsee.
The fourth place in the 'Beauty of the Night Sky' category went to a photo captured by China's Xiaohua, which appears to show the Milky Way spread out across the Great Wall of China.
What makes this photo particularly eye-catching is the true contrast in what we see: our galaxy which still remains one of nature's great mysteries, and one of mankind's most notable achievements - the Great Wall.
Luc Perrot's panoramic shot below of the mountain view from Reunion Island's national park shows us more than you might at first think.

Picturesque: Beauty of Sourthern Sky by Luc Perrot won third place in Beauty of the Night Sky category. The band of the Milky Way arcs above volcano Piton de la Fournaise, Reunion Island

Mountains and valleys: Alps at Night by Thomas Kurat with the bright glow of the town near Lake Traunsee, Austria contrasting with the natural dark night skies won First prize in the Against the Light category

Aurora Borealis: Stephane Vetter's 'A Starry Night in Iceland' won first prize in the Beauty of the Night Sky category. The arch of the aurora shines over Jökulsárlón, the largest glacier lake in Iceland while the Milky Way is framed by the dancing ring of the northern lights

The dazzling light is in fact Venus while Mars shines below and to the right. The bright stars Alpha and Beta Centauri are in the top left.
The image, that won first place in the 'Against the Lights' category captures the light pollution from the small villages in the valley trying to burst out through the fog.
'Isafan Milky Way' by Mehdi Momenzadeh grabbed second place in the 'Against the Lights' category.
A tree appears to sway in the wind as the arc of the Milky Way rises above Central Iran, as it is faded away in the north east by the lights of the famous city of Isafan.
For further information, visit The World At Night website, www.twanight.org.

On the horizon: Third place in the Against the Lights category is a picture titled 'Lisbon Sky Lights' by Miguel Claro. Taken of and above the 25 April Bridge in Lisbon the long exposure used shows the stars and the crescent moon trail towards the west

The Great Wall at Night: This oriental beauty by China's Xiaohua shows how Space is visible from the Great Wall of China

'Venus Above Reunion Island': The dazzling light of Venus is captured in this panoramic mountain view from Reunion Island's national park by Luc Perrot who won fourth place in the Against the Lights category

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Most Beautiful National Parks Seen From Space

Inspired by a recent trip to Yellowstone National Park, this gallery contains some of the country's most spectacular national parks, as seen from space.

Yellowstone's geothermal features are strange enough from the ground, but from orbit they seem even more incongruous (above). The Landsat 7 image below shows Yellowstone Lake and the entire park in false color, which highlights certain features that might not stand out in true color. Water appears dark blue or black, and snow is light blue. Grass fields appear light green, the dark red-and-green is mature forest, and young forest, such as has grown back since the 1988 wildfires, is pink.

This collection of 21 national parks and one monument includes many of our favorites we've visited and a few we hope to add to the list someday.

Yellowstone National Park

Location: Wyoming, Montana, Idaho

Established: March 1, 1872

Size: 3,468 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 3,640,185

Yellowstone was the first national park in the country, and in the world. Its famous geothermal features -- including the Grand Prismatic Spring (shown above), Old Faithful and more than 200 other geysers -- are fueled by a mantle hotspot. The park's other main attractions are its many large mammal species including grizzly bear, moose, gray wolf, lynx and bison. And of course, the excellent trout fishing.

Images: Above: GeoEye. Below: NASA.

Everglades National Park

Location: Florida

Established: May 30, 1934

Size: 2,357 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 915,538

The marshy, subtropical Everglades park has 36 threatened or protected species living in it, including the Florida panther, West Indian manatee and American crocodile. The park was created to protect the fragile wetlands that were vanishing as the area was drained for agricultural and residential purposes.

Images: Above: NASA. Below: USGS.

Crater Lake National Park

Location: Oregon

Established: May 22, 1902

Size: 249 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 448,319

Crater Lake was formed when a stratovolcano called Mount Mazama collapsed during a massive, explosive eruption 7,700 years ago that blew ash 30 miles high and deposited it over much of the Pacific Northwest and parts of southern Canada. The 1,943-foot deep lake is the deepest in the U.S. and took around 740 years to fill.

Image: NASA.

Kenai Fjords National Park

Location: Alaska

Established: Dec. 2, 1980

Size: 1,047 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 297,596

Alaska's smallest national park, Kenai Fjords contains one of the country's largest ice fields. Harding Ice Field feeds 38 glaciers including Bear Glacier (above), which is the park's largest, and Exit Glacier, the only one accessible by road. The area's fjords are carved by the glaciers as they move downhill away from the ice field.

Image: GeoEye.

Mount Rainier National Park

Location: Washington state

Established: March 2, 1899

Size: 368 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 1,113,601

The 14,411-foot Mount Rainier is the highest peak in the Cascade Range and the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States. This huge stratovolcano is one of 16 volcanoes in the world identified as particularly dangerous, due to its history of large eruptions and its location just 54 miles southeast of Seattle.

Image: NASA.

Capitol Reef National Park

Location: Utah

Established: Dec. 18, 1971

Size: 378 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 662,659

Capitol Reef's most striking feature is a nearly 100-mile-long monocline known as the Waterpocket Fold (above). The park gets its name from the dome-shaped cliffs of Navajo sandstone at the northern end of the fold.

Images: Above: NASA. Below: NASA/USGS.

Death Valley National Park

Location: California, Nevada

Established: Oct. 31, 1994

Size: 5,270 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 984,775

Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the second lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. It is the hottest, driest place in the country, with an average high of 115 degrees Fahreneheit during July. Temperatures exceeding 120 are not uncommon, and on July 10, 1913, the temperature reached 134.

Images: Above: USGS/NASA. Below: NASA/USGS.

Glacier National Park

Location: Montana

Established: May 11, 1910

Size: 1,583 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 2,200,048

There were likely around 150 glaciers in the park when it was established a century ago. Today there are 37, and just 25 that are big enough (greater than 25 acres) to be designated active glaciers. Some scientists estimate all of them will disappear by 2030, and others predict this will happen even earlier if current climate trends persist.

Images: Above: NASA. Below: USG/NASA.

Grand Canyon National Park

Location: Arizona

Established: Feb. 26, 1919

Size: 1,902 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 4,388,386

The Grand Canyon averages 4,000 feet deep and reaches 6,000 feet at its deepest point and 15 miles at its widest. The park includes 277 miles of the Colorado River, which has exposed around 2 billion years of geologic history.


Images: Above: NASA. Below: NASA.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

Location: Colorado

Established: Sep. 13, 2004

Size: 130 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 283,284

The main dune field in the park is 30 square miles and contains the tallest dunes in North America, with the Star Dune topping the list at 750 feet. Scientists estimate the dunes began forming 440,000 years ago.

Images: Above: USGS/NASA. Below: GeoEye.

Arches National Park

Location: Utah

Established: Nov. 12, 1971

Size: 120 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 1,014,405

The natural arches and bridges in this park (above) and the surrounding area were formed by erosion of the reddish-colored Entrada Sandstone. All of the arches will eventually erode away, and 43 have disappeared since 1970.

Rainbow Bridge National Monument

Location: Utah

Established: May 30, 1910

Size: 0.25 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 104,501

Though not of a national park, the view of Rainbow Bridge in the satellite image below made it too irresistible not to include in this gallery. Though the official website describes it as the largest known natural bridge, its 234-foot span is a bit shorter than several other formations, including Utah's Landscape Arch and Kolob Arch.

Images: Above: NASA/USGS. Below: GeoEye.

Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park

Location: Hawaii

Established: Aug. 1, 1916

Size: 505 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 1,304,667

This park contains Mauna Loa, Earth's most massive volcano, and Kilauea, one of the world's most active volcanoes. The area has also been designated an International Biosphere Reserve and a World Heritage Site.

Image: NASA.

Grand Teton National Park

Location: Wyoming

Established: Feb. 26, 1929

Size: 484 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 2,669,374

The Tetons are among the most impressive mountain ranges in the world. Grand Teton is 13,770 feet tall, but more impressively, it abruptly rises more than 7,000 feet from the Snake River plain below. They are the youngest of the Rocky Mountains, but are made of some of the continent's oldest rocks.


Image: NASA/USGS.

Wrangell–St. Elias National Park

Location: Alaska

Established: Dec. 2, 1980

Size: 20,587 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 73,170

This glacier-ridden backcountry outpost is the nation's largest national park. Just two roads offer access to a small portion of it, and bush pilots ferry visitors into the more remote areas. Mount St. Elias is 18,008 feet tall, making it the second highest peak in the U.S., and eight more of the 16 highest peaks in the country are located in the park.

Images: Above: NASA/USGS. Below: NASA.

Canyonlands National Park

Location: Utah

Established: Sept. 12, 1964

Size: 528 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 435,908

One of the most striking features in the image above is the circular structure in the northern part of the park known as Upheaval Dome. Scientists still aren't sure how it formed. The two main theories are that it is the result of an asteroid impact or a rising layer of salt known as a salt dome.

Image: NASA/USGS.

Redwood National and State Parks

Location: California

Established: Jan. 1, 1968

Size: 208 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 418,820

Just 4 percent of the old-growth redwood forests that once covered coastal northern California are left, and nearly half of the remaining redwoods are in the combined Redwood National and State Parks. Some of the park's trees are 2,000 years old, and many are more than 350 feet tall. The park's tallest tree, named Hyperion, is just over 371 feet tall.

Image: NASA/USGS.

Yosemite National Park

Location: California

Established: Oct. 1, 1890

Size: 1,189 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 3,901,408

Most visitors to Yosemite spend the majority of their time in Yosemite Valley, where the massive granite that dominates the area has been carved and eroded into the park's iconic Half Dome and El Capitan formations. The Valley's U-shape was created by the movement of glacial ice that may have grown as thick as 4,000 feet.

Image: NASA/USGS.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Location: Utah

Established: Feb. 25, 1928

Size: 56 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 1,285,492

The centerpiece of this park (above), which is named after Mormon pioneer Ebenezer Bryce, is a collection of stunningly sculpted cliffs known as the Bryce amphitheater. The thousands of almost people-shaped spires in the amphitheater and the rest of the park are erosional features known as hoodoos.

Zion National Park

Location: Utah

Established: Nov. 19, 1919

Size: 229 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 2,665,972

Not too far from Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion (below) is Utah's first, and most popular park. Zion's cliffs expose 150 million years of geologic formations known collectively as the Grand Staircase. The park's narrow, steep, water-carved canyons star among Zion's many assets.

Images: Above: USGS/NASA. Below: NASA.

Shenandoah National Park

Location: Virginia

Established: Dec. 26, 1935

Size: 307 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 1,253,386

Shenandoah is a long, narrow park that runs along a portion of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Its 105-mile-long, scenic Skyline Drive often has heavy tourist traffic during the fall when the leaves are changing colors. The park also contains more than 100 miles of the Appalachian Trail.

Image: NASA/USGS.

Denali National Park

Location: Alaska

Established: Feb. 26, 1917

Size: 9,492 square miles

Visitors in 2010: 378,855

Denali contains the highest mountain in North America at 20,320 feet in elevation. The peak is officially recognized by Alaska as Denali, but is known as Mount McKinley to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. The first known ascent of Denali's main summit was in 1913. More than 1,000 climbers visit the mountain each year, but historically only a little over half of the summit attempts are successful. More than 100 people have died on Denali.

Images: Above: Space Imaging. Below: University of Maryland Global Land Cover Facility.

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Sleeping Bear Dunes Voted 'Most Beautiful Place in America'

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Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, tucked away in the northwest corner of Michigan's Lower Peninsula, won the title of "Good Morning America's" Most Beautiful Place in America.

Tens of thousands of viewers voted online for this Michigan park, which is one of the nation's best-kept secrets. The hidden gem boasts 64 miles of beaches along Lake Michigan, two islands, 26 inland lakes, more than 50,000 acres of land, and the monumental sand dunes from which it gets its name.

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In June, "GMA" set out in search of the most beautiful places in America. Viewers nominated their favorite places online, sending in thousands of photos from across the country showcasing spectacular sunsets, regal mountaintops and jaw-dropping views, many with awe-inspiring stories to match.

From there "GMA" narrowed the field down to 10 -- Sleeping Bear Dunes, Mich.; Newport, R.I.; Cape Cod, Mass.; Point Reyes, Calif.; Aspen, Colo.; Sedona, Ariz; Destin, Fla.; Asheville, N.C.; Lanikai Beach, Hawaii; and Grand Teton National Park, Wyo.

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"GMA" viewer Jim Madole of Grand Rapids, Mich., nominated Sleeping Bear for its natural beauty.

"It is peaceful and serene, a place for gazing out into the world, night or day, and realizing that the universe is truly a magical, majestic mystery, and humans are just a very small part of it all," he wrote in his submission. "Here at Sleeping Bear, I sit in awe and wonder at the perfection of Mother Nature."

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Your Vacation Guide

The sensational scenery is not all that Sleeping Bear has to offer. The grounds will keep even the most adventurous outdoors enthusiast busy with hiking, fishing, canoeing, kayaking, skiing, snowshoeing and more.

Catch a ferry to South Manitou Island, located off the coast of the Leelanau Peninsula, to explore the famous dunes without the crowds or see the historic Francisco Morazan shipwreck.

The small towns surrounding the park are full of the makings for a perfect family vacation, complete with small inns, charming architecture and delicious local food.

One of the area's biggest fans is none other than Mario Batali -- also one of "GMA's" favorite chefs. Batali told "GMA" his favorite restaurant for a bite when he is in the area is Hearth and Vine, in Sutton's Bay, Mich.

For a sweet treat, pop into Bob Sutherland's Cherry Republic, a mecca of cherry-themed products located in Glen Arbor, Mich.

"You're in the largest cherry growing region in the world," said Sutherland, who is the Willy Wonka of cherry products, selling delicacies such as chocolate-covered dried cherries, cherry salsa, cherry jam, cherry peanut butter, cherry ice creams, cherry pie, and more. "Cherries are what we are."

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RECIPE: Mario Batali's Cherry Jam Tart

To work it all off, stop by Matt and Katy Weisen's kayak shop, Crystal River Outfitters. Each day countless visitors paddle down the serene waters of the Crystal River. Watersports abound with paddleboarding, kiteboarding above Lake Michigan, charter boat fishing or fly-fishing.

Before you leave town, make sure to head back out to those great dunes, to really appreciate why you voted the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore this year's Most Beautiful Place in America.

abcnews.go.com