Hi All,

This image was created by stitching together six separate wide angle shots all done on the same night. The tricky part was positioning the camera after each shot and getting the overlap between each image correct.

South is at the top of the frame and scrolling down to the bottom shows the view north. I could have gone further south but I have to trim down a hedge in that direction. The frame is centred along the galactic equator.
The Eta Carina nebula is visible at the top center and the image continues down to the start of the Cygnus region at the bottom.

Camera used was a Canon 10D with 18-55mm lens at 18mm set at F4.0, ISO 800 and each exposure was for 5 minutes. This was manually guided using a Vixen GPDX equatorial mount.

Chris.

www.starrynightphotos.com

Attached Images

milky_way_panorama.jpg (92.9 KB, 8 views)

Stunning shot, well done. Did you use autostitch or some other program to create the mosaic?

I notice you're from NZ, just across the Tasman from me. You might also be interested in checking out the local site, IceInSpace, linked in my sig.

I love widefield shots, you've made me want to take some more!

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Mike
. 10" GSO Dob
. 11x70 Binos
. IceInSpace - Aussie/NZ astro website and community forums
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/logo.jpg

Thanks,

I used PTGui to stitch the frames together. It does quite a good job and has a function which attempts to even out the brightness between frames. Additionally I used PixInsight to remove most of the other uneven illumination.

Chris.

Hi Chris. Ice man said well done. He is stating fact here. Your photos are by far some of the best that I have seen on this forum. Again yes well done. Paul F. Campbell

Very nice panorama

Beautiful. Thanks for posting.

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Heaven's Gate Observatory H47
32° 15' 59"N, 90° 51' 22"W
http://www.quantumhyperspace.com/