This is a panorama of the southernmost portion of the Milky Way, from the stars Alpha and Beta Centauri at far left, to Sirius, the brightest nighttime star, at far right. The second brightest star, Canopus, is included at lower right.

Above Canopus, the major feature is the vast Gum Nebula (Gum 12), a nearby (1470 light years away) supernova remnant (possibly!), named for its discoverer Australian astronomer Colin Gum.

The panorama illustrates the variety of colours along the Milky Way, from the dust-dimmed yellow tints in Centaurus and Carina at left, with some yellow-brown dust clouds, contrasting with the bluer tints to the right away from the dusty Carina spiral arm. The panorama also illustrates how bright the Milky Way is in Carina at left of centre, compared to farther north (right) in Vela and Puppis. The Carina area is the southernmost region of the Milky Way.

To the right of Alpha and Beta Centauri are the stars of Crux, the Southern Cross, beside the dark Coal Sack dust cloud. To the right of them are the red patches of the Lambda Centauri and Carina Nebulas. At centre are the stars of the False Cross.

This is a panorama of 3 segments, each a stack of 10 to 20 sub-frames, each 4 minutes at ISO 800 with the Canon Ra and Canon RF28-70mm lens at f/2. The lens had an URTH broadband light pollution filter on it to help bring out the nebulosity.

The camera was on the MSM Nomad tracker.

I stitched the flattened segments using PTGui for more control of the blend and seams.

Taken on a perfect night March 4, 2024 from the Mirrabook Cottage near Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia. Moonrise prevented more segments to the left toward Scorpius.