Under the Milky Way tonight

360-degree photographic panorama of the entire galaxy, from the viewpoint of our solar system. (via Wikipedia)

From Astronomy Picture of the Day comes this cool, animated GIF titled "The Milky Way Over Paranal." My father talks about how almost anywhere outside of large, metropolitan areas, one could look up and see the Milky Way every single, clear, cloudless night back in the '50s and '60s. Can you imagine?

"The Milky Way Over Paranal"
Credit & Copyright: Stéphane Guisard
The explanation from the site:

It's not the sky that's falling. More accurately, the Earth is rising. The Earth's rotation gives a continually changing view to all Earth observers, including those measuring the universe at the Paranal Observatory. The observatory's four, massive 8.2 meter telescope units are situated on top of the 2,600 meter high mountain, Cerro Paranal, in the dry Atacama Desert in northern Chile.

Appropriately (at least to my way of thinking), here is the video for "Under the Milky Way" by The Church, from their 1988 album Starfish: