Contains:  Extremely wide field
Mosaic: Milky Way and Planets (Astrotracer), AlenK

Mosaic: Milky Way and Planets (Astrotracer)

Mosaic: Milky Way and Planets (Astrotracer), AlenK

Mosaic: Milky Way and Planets (Astrotracer)

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Description

This is a nine-panel (3 x 3) mosaic showing the summer Milky Way and three planets: Mars on the left (east), Saturn embedded in the Milky Way (above and to the left of M8) and Jupiter on the right (west). Some red and green banded airglow is also visible to the right of the Milky Way. I didn't notice the airglow with my eyes. The mosaic has obtained a field of view roughly equivalent to that of a  single image from a 14mm lens. All panels are single, 1-minute exposures with the lens wide open at f/2.8. 

Tracking was internal to the camera using its Astrotracer feature, with the camera mounted directly on a tripod. Astrotracer makes taking such mosaics relatively simple since re-aiming the camera for each successive panel is intuitive (unlike using an external tracker). This was, in fact, only my second serious astrophoto using Astrotracer (not just testing it from my backyard) on my first night of serious use and was also my first astro-mosaic.

This is technically a nightscape because of the foreground, which shows red lights and vehicles parked up near my campsite at the Starfest Star party near Ayton, Ontario, Canada. It's not a terribly interesting foreground but it's all that was available from that venue. My intent was only to get all of the Milky Way I could see, not to make a nightscape. The cars were simply in the way.

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Mosaic: Milky Way and Planets (Astrotracer), AlenK