Milkyway Galactic Core view from Tanzania

[bdlbug]

There are quite a few excellent milkyway images being posted at the moment and I particularly like that we get views of the milkyway not only from UK but from members posting from locations all over the world and also when we UK astronomy types holiday abroad and can get some astro kit packed under the radar into the luggage - I managed to convince my better half that I simply must have my tripod and ball head along with the very important wide angle lens, despite the fact we were on a safari and the 500mm zoom was the default lens. Anyway, it was a holiday of firsts, first time in Africa, first time south of the equator and first time in such dark dark skies. I had heard that the Milkyway core could cast shadows - I thought that was urban myth - nope - its incredibly bright when you are under truly dark skies.

So below is my image, consisting of around twenty 20s unguided images using unmodified Cannon 600D with Samyang 14mm lens at ISO3200. I used Microsoft ICE to stitch all the images together then Photoshop to warp into a 'flat' image and then further processing to reduce noise and increase saturation. The image was taken  from a location called Miramboi, a tented lodge between Tarangire National park and Lake Manyara, about 3 deg south of equator.

There are a few clouds in the image, and my impromptu mosaic plan left a few gaps hence the 'triangle artifact ' bottom center of image...... next time, if there every is a next time, the Star Adventurer will get packed !!!!

Bryan

Edited August 2, 2019 by bdlbug

[PembrokeSteve]

Wow, what a fantastic image'

Regards
Steve