7 panel Milky Way mosaic

In June 2006, I spent several nights at the Tivoli Astrofarm in Namibia, one of the finest dark-sky locations in the world. During that stay, I created a 7 panel wide-field mosaic of the southern Milky Way, using only a 28 mm wide-angle lens on DSLR equipment. Even with such simple gear, the exceptionally dark Namibian sky made it possible to capture an extraordinarily rich view of our Galaxy. The resulting mosaic reveals the dense star fields and dark dust lanes of the inner Milky Way, stretching through constellations such as Scorpius, Sagittarius, Centaurus, and Crux.

From a scientific perspective, this region is one of the most complex and dynamic parts of the night sky. The image encompasses major star-forming complexes—including the Rho Ophiuchi cloud, the Pipe Nebula, and the vast Sagittarius–Carina arm—as well as numerous globular clusters that orbit high above the Galactic plane. The southern Milky Way hosts some of the brightest and most massive stellar nurseries in the Local Arm, offering a direct visual look into the processes that shape the structure and evolution of our Galaxy. Capturing this panoramic view under such pristine conditions remains one of my most memorable early astrophotography experiences.

Data calibration and registration was done with DeepSkyStacker and the final processing was done with PixInsight. The result was as follows:

The images were taken with the following equipment:

• Date: 2006
• Location: Tivoli, Namibia
• Telescope: Tamron 28-300
• Focal length [mm]: 28
• Focal ratio: 5
• Mount: Vixen Atlux
• Camera: Canon Da 300
• Filter: OSC
• Exposure time [min]: 116
• Resolution: ?/px