I took the image and processed it twice, once pushing the scene to bright to remove some noise from the lighthouse, and once dark to allow the galaxy to better be visible. I then merged the two images using the bright version for the ground and lighthouse and the dark one for everything else.

late spring through early fall are the best times in the northern hemisphere to see the center of the milky way - I took this shot last week on a particularly clear night on the California coast near Santa Cruz. The lighthouse is Pigeon Point, and the photo also shows the galactic center and Jupiter. The galactic center is visible in the early morning hours in May, and by September just after sunset. One needs to avoid the bright moon. For this shot, the moon crescent was setting just as the galactic core was rising so I used the moon to illuminate the lighthouse which was otherwise unlit.