Southern Milky Way from Wiruna

[Ryderscope]

I decided that it was about time to dust off the old Skywatcher Star Adventurer mount and run off some Milky Way shots given that it is Milky Way season and all :). This is taken from the ASNSW site at Wiruna during last months new moon observing weekend. Comprised of two panels with each panel being 10 subs at 180s per sub. 20 matching dark frames were captured as well. Imaging camera was my Canon 60Da and lens being the Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens stepped down to f5.6.

Software used was Pixinsight for calibration, integration and post processing and PTGui for stitching the panels.

The attached thumbnails include an annotated image that shows the names of the major deep sky objects that can be seen across the plane of the Milky Way.

Makes for an interesting tour to see what we can find.

Enjoy.

Link to Astrobin post here. (https://astrob.in/o9qeme/0/)

Clear skies,
Rodney

[strongmanmike]

What a great project for Wiruna Rod, must have been fun :camera:, bluudy excellent mate, loved surfing the big version, gotta love a Milky Way mosaic, top job :thumbsup:

Mike

[Ryderscope]

Many thanks Mike. I probably left it a tad late in the season to attack this project as the area around Crux/Carina is already starting to set early(ish). This was evident in the captured data in the form of obvious gradients that had to be dealt with.

[appiice]

Hello Rodney

Hope you are well, the two images are stunning, it is a pity our eyes cannot see the MW like that, television would not have been invented!
Ed

[strongmanmike]

I recon it's pretty good! Cool to compare to my old school 1984 high school version (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/110764947/original) :P..aaah sigh, technology....:thumbsup:
Mike

[alpal]

Hi Rodney,
you have excelled with this image -
it is spectacular.

cheers
Allan

[Ryderscope]

Mike, that is delightful and fabulous. What treasures we have stored in our archives :stargaze:

[Ryderscope]

Thanks Allan. Much appreciated.

[petershah]

Wow, that's a huge amount of work and it shows....soooo good!

[Dave882]

Gosh that’s incredible. Seriously wow

[AstroViking]

Holy cow... That's a very impressive image. Beautiful.

[Ryderscope]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

[gregbradley]

Beautifully done Rod. That was a good move to stop down so much and extend the exposure time.

Greg.

[Ryderscope]

Thanks Greg, stepping down this lens is a necessity I've found to keep the star profiles reasonably well behaved.

[Benjamin]

For someone stuck in a city for the time being this is just lovely to see and enjoy. Can you be sky-sick? If so it’s just testament to how evocative this is.

[Ryderscope]

Yes, I reckon for sure that one can be 'sky sick'. I'm lucky to be able to live under and enjoy rural skies. It is quite special to be able to walk around under a clear dark sky with the bright arch of the Milky Way overhead lighting the way.

Hopefully you won't be stuck in the city too long Ben before you can get out under the dark skies again.

Clear skies,
Rodney