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 During our
            recent trip to Queensland Australia to visit with our good friend
            Paul Tierney, we had many opportunities in the superb skies found
            deep in the Outback for both imaging and visual observing. While
            at our darkest site near Winton, the full Milky Way was photographed
            with the robotic barn door mount using multiple exposures and
            the 17-40mm L lens set for widest field. The image presented
            here is the final panorama, extending from the roof of the sheep
            shearers quarters on the left, to the distant horizon with a
            few trees on the right. 

            
The most detail
            is in the largest image, if you have a faster connection.

            
Image Details:

            
The center of our
            galaxy in Sagittarius passes through the zenith from this location,
            which is the brightest part in the center. The dark rifts that
            appear in front of the galactic plane are unilluminated dust,
            which blocks the stars behind and are tinted a dull brown in
            color. I wont try to list all the deep sky objects you can find
            in this image, but the Coal sack and Eta Carina are on the right
            side above the horizon, to the right of center is the dark constellation
            of the Emu. The full extent of the "Dark Horse" nebula
            is just above center. You can see a bright pink spot to the left
            of center, thats M8 - the Lagoon Nebula. The richness of the
            Milky Way diminishes slightly on the left side, into Aquilla
            and the left edge is Cygnus. Look carefully at the lower left
            corner, and you can see all of Delphinus.

Instrument:  Canon 17 - 40mm L @ 17mm stopped to f/4.5
Platform:  Robotic Barn Door 
Camera:  Canon 10D @ ISO800
Exposure:  10m x 4
Filters:  UV
Location:  Near Winton, Queensland, Australia
Elevation:  700 ft.
Sky:  Seeing  9/10, Transparency 10/10
Outside Temperature:  50F
Processing Tools:  Photoshop CS, Maxim DL, PixInsight, Pixmantec RAW
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