The region in the tail of Scorpius around the Cat’s Paw Nebula, NGC 6334, centred, with NGC 6357 above at the top and the tiny planetary, the Bug Nebula, NGC 6302, at bottom right. Shaula or Lambda Scorpii, is the brightest star at lower left, along with Lesath, the stars marking the stinger in the tail of Scorpius. This is a stack of 5 x 6-minute exposures with the Borg 77mm f/4 astrograph and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII taken from the Tibuc Cottage, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia.
A panoramic mosaic of bright starclouds and dark stardust in the rich region of the Milky Way around the centre of the Galaxy in Sagittarius. This panorama extends from the tail of Scorpius at far right to Serpens at far left, with the bright Sagittarius Starcloud near the direction of the galactic centre at centre. The Milky Way here is populated by a rich collection of nebulas and star clusters, including - from right to left - the Cat’s Paw and NGC 6337 in the tail of Scorpius at right, the Lagoon and Trifid Nebulas in Sagittarius (left of centre), and the Swan and Eagle Nebulas in Serpens at far left. The Small Sagittarius Starcloud, M24, is at left, flanked above and below by the star clusters M23 and M25. The star clusters M6 and M7 are at right of centre in Scorpius, with M7 lost in the starclouds. The bright “clouds” are masses of stars. The dark regions are obscuring regions of interstellar dust hiding the more distant stars. The actual centre of the Galaxy near the centre of the frame is not visible here in this or any visible light image as it is hidden by dust. The nebulas at right in Scorpius are much redder as they are obscured by dark interstellar dust which absorbs the shorter blue wavelengths which add to the pink colours of the other nebulas which glow in red and blue wavelengths of hydrogen alpha and beta as well as cyan oxygen III wavelengths. The mosaic runs along the galactic equator. I present this as a horizontal landscape image with north to the left and south to the right. This is the way you generally see this area in the southern hemisphere. But in the northern hemisphere this region of sky is seen running vertically from south to north, so the mosaic should be turned 90° CW to match that view. However, I shot this from Australia, on April 13, 2016 on a near perfect night for astronomy. This is a mosaic of 6 segments, each segment being a stack of 4 x 3-minute exposures at f/2.8 with the 135mm Canon L-Series telephoto lens, tracked on the AP 400 mount, and with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600. Stacking and stitching in Photoshop CC 2015. The original is 11,100 by 3,800 pixels.
A panorama of the centre of the Galaxy portion of the southern hemisphere Milky Way, from Crux at right to Aquila at left. This was taken from Atacama Lodge near San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, on May 2, 2011. It is a 6-segment mosaic, each segment being 4 x 6 minutes + 1 x 6 minutes with a Kenko Softon filter, all at f/4 and ISO 800 with the Canon 5D MkII and Canon L-series 35m lens. Note the sweep of bright blue stars from Scorpius to Orion but angled above then across and below the Milky Way — this is Gould's Belt of new hot stars near us.
