This is a panorama that extends for about 240º along the northern half of the Milky Way, centered on the Galactic Equator.

It takes in the sky from:
— Canis Major and Orion at left that were in the pre-dawn southeast sky this night ...
— through the other northern winter constellations of Taurus and Auriga at left of centre ...
— past the northern autumn constellations of Cassiopeia, Perseus and Cepheus at centre that were overhead in middle of the night ...
— then into the northern summer constellations of Cygnus and Aquila at right of centre ...
— to the constellations of Scutum, Sagittarius and Scorpius at far right that were low in the southwest post-dusk sky.

I shot all the images for this panorama on the same night in a long dusk-to-dawn session. So the segments at right were shot first in the early evening, the segments at centre in the middle of the night, and the segments at left shot last in the pre-dawn hours.

Bands of airglow tinted the sky at dusk (right) and dawn (left), particularly low in the southwest at dusk.

The brightest object at left is Jupiter, then in Taurus, with reddish Mars in Gemini above and to the left of Jupiter.

Along the Milky Way are many reddish star-forming emission nebulas, such as those around Orion at left, in Cassiopeia at centre, and in Cygnus at right of centre. But what stands out the most, and I emphasized in processing, are the many dark lanes of interstellar dust, not only in the MilkyWay itself, but also off the Milky Way adding subtle dark patches to the sky.

Everything in this image belongs to our Milky Way Galaxy, with the exception of the Andromeda Galaxy, the elliptical glow at bottom centre. It is another spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way that is 2.5 million light years away.

I shot the panorama on the night of October 3/4, 2024 from the Quailway Cottage in southeastern Arizona at latitude 32º N. It complements a similar dusk-to-dawn panorama that I shot six months earlier in March 202