Thanks everyone - it was a magical sight from a really dark site
The first super-wide-field is a universal favourite. The detail is very good with round stars in the centre viewed at 100%, but unfortunately it's rather noisy due to the continuous 5 minute exposures on the SLR. I'm going to run off a few dark/flat/bias frames to generate the final image - can't wait to print it out BIG.
Greg - I suspect you're spot on re tracking since the dynamic range of the twilight scene is surprisingly high. Here's the histogram from one of the unprocessed subs - foreground silhouette on the left, main yellow/green sky background in the lower third, and stars and nebulosity detail in the upper two-thirds. I'd love to shoot wide fields with a cooled CCD with large pixels on a "full-frame" chip (e.g. the KAI-11000 cameras) but they're still out of my price range.
Liz - I never thought I'd say this, but I have to thank the clouds in SE QLD because without them I wouldn't have driven out so far
