The southern Milky Way near dawn, December 2012, over Timor Cottage, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia. This is a stack of 3 x 2 1/2 minute exposures, tracked, with the Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800 and 15mm lens at f/2.8. The ground is from one exposure to avoid blurring of foreground details. Dawn twlight is tinting the sky blue. Orion is at right, Sirius high in the upper right, Vela and Puppis at top centre, and Carina, the Carina Nebula, and the Southern Cross at upper left.
The Amazing Sky 