A mosaic of the main area of the southern Milky Way containing the best of the splendours of the southern hemisphere sky, from Puppis and Vela at top right to Centaurus at bottom left, and including Canopus and the Large Magellanic Cloud at lower right. Crux, the Southern Cross, and the Carina Nebula are at left of centre. The False Cross is at centre. Alpha and Beta Centauri are at lower left. Omega Centauri is at the left edge of the frame. The huge faint and red Gum Nebula in Vela is at upper right, as is the smaller Vela Supernova Remnant. The dark Coal Sack is left of the Southern Cross. The Dark Doodad is below the Cross. This a 4-panel mosaic, each panel being a stack of 4 x 2.5-minute exposures at f/2.2 with the 35mm lens and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600, with an additional exposure taken through the Kenko Softon A filter for each panel also blended in to add the accentuated star glows. All taken on the iOption Sky Tracker from the Warrumbungles Motel grounds at the 2016 OzSky Star Party. Stacked and stitched in Photoshop CC 2015. The original is 8500 x 5400 pixels.
The spectacular field of Messier 8 and 20 emission and reflection nebulas in Sagittarius, with M8, aka the Lagoon Nebula below, and M20, the Trifid Nebula, above, all set in the rich starfields of the Milky Way. The diffuse nebula left of M8 is NGC 6559. Two globular clusters, NGC 6544 and NGC 6553, sit below and to the left (east) of M8. The Messier open cluster, M21, sits above M20. I shot this April 4, 2016 from the Tibuc Cottage at Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia, using the 77mm Borg f/4 astrograph for a stack of 5 x 6-minute exposures with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600.
