the milky way

[solomon levi]

Jacob's ladder, The Way to St. James'...
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Milky+Way&allowed_in_frame=0

[Lapis Solaris]

I recently found this on Reddit which your post reminded me of; a shot of the Andromeda Galaxy, from the sharpest view ever taken by the Hubble Space Telescope:

http://i.imgur.com/Nk9w7as.jpg

"The sky is just awash with stars when you’re on the far side of the Moon, and you don’t have any sunlight to cut down on the lower intensity, dimmer stars. You see them all, and it’s all just a sheet of white." - Al Worden, Apollo 15 astronaut, in regard to being on the far side of the moon.

It makes me wonder about the beginning; how Genesis describes that there was light and there was darkness before there were any stars. The "light and dark" were simply separated.