A beam of sunlight piercing through an arch on a beach in Big Sur, California. This phenomenon occurs every year around the winter solstice when the setting suns aligns perfectly with this rock formation and I was excited to see it for the first time recently.
And here's a night photo from the same location. The final image you see is a composite of several photos taken on the same night from the same beach. The sky is a vertical panorama that consists of 5 overlapping 2-min exposures to capture a significant portion of the Milky Way (swipe right to see the whole panorama). The Pfeiffer Beach archway and the beach were shot about an hour earlier and composited with the sky panorama. The light emanating from the arch is actually caused by the setting sun, not the moon or the stars as you might think.
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