Milky Way from Death Valley

I work for a daily newspaper. Today i was browsing wire photos and came across an amazing photo of the Milky Way taken from the Racetrack dry lake in Death Valley national park. I uploaded a copy to my website here...

http://www.stargazing.com/pub/dv_milkyway.jpg

This is the caption that accompanied the image...

"This middle of the night June 2005 handout photo released by the National Park Service shows Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, Ariz.. The land is illuminated by starlight only, including the moving rocks and their tracks on the flat clay surface, far away from light pollution and under the clear desert air. (AP Photo/National Park Service)"

I've never seen a more spectacular shot of the night sky! But then i got to wondering if it's real or if it's a montage of a time exposure of the stars and a stationary image of the foreground desert. To capture that much detail with an exposure time short enough to not show any star trails would take some very fast film. Anyone have any insight into how the image was taken?

-Florian