Amazing Sky by Alan Dyer

A panorama from Cygnus (at right, setting in the western sky in the evening), across the sky overhead in Perseus, Auriga and Taurus, and down into Orion, Canis Major, and Puppis (at left, low in the southern sky at midnight). This panorama covers about 200° of galactic longitude, from 60° in Cygnus to 260° in Puppis and takes in the entire northern swath of the Milky Way visible in autumn and early winter in the northern hemisphere, from the summer Milky Way at right to the winter Milky Way at left.

Orion is at lower left, while the Pleiades and Andromeda Galaxy lie near the bottom edge. Canopus is the bright star just rising at far left, in haze. Vega and Altair are just setting at far right.

The view here is looking outward to the near edge of the Milky Way, in the direction opposite the centre of the Galaxy. In this direction the Milky Way becomes dimmer and less defined. Notable are the many red H-alpha emission regions along the Milky Way, as well as the many lanes of dark interstellar dust nearby and obscuring the more distant stars. However, a brighter glow in Taurus partly obscures its Taurus Dark Clouds — that’s the Gegenschein, caused by sunlight reflecting off cometary dust particles directly opposite the Sun and marking the anti-solar point this night, by coincidence close to galactic longitude of 180° opposite the galactic centre.

This is a panorama of 14 segments, most composed of 5 x 2.5-minute exposures with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600 and 35mm lens at f/2.8. The end segments near the horizon are stacks of 2 x 2.5-minute exposures. The camera was oriented with the long dimension of the frame across the Milky Way, not along it, to maximize the amount of sky framed on either side of the Milky Way.

The camera was on the iOptron Sky-Tracker. I shot the segements for his pan from Quailway Cottage, Arizona on December 8/9, 2015, with the end segments taken Dec 10/11, 2015. I decided to add in the horizon segments for compl