Nikon d5500 35mm ISO 4000 f/2.8 Foreground: 18 x 20 seconds Sky: 46 x 30 seconds iOptron SkyTracker This is a 64 shot panorama of the Milky Way and post-sunset Zodiacal Light above Nambling Lakes, 5km west of the small Wheatbelt town of Dowerin in Western Australia, 2 hours north east of the state capital, Perth. I specifically wanted to capture the Zodiacal Light with this panorama, having seen it very prominently the last time I was in Dowerin a few weeks earlier. That time I was in the middle of shooting a panorama facing south so by the time I'd finished it was too faint to capture. The Zodiacal Light is best seen after sunset in Spring and before dawn in Autumn. It's currently Spring here in Australia so this was started about an hour after sunset and finished about an hour later. It was an abrupt finish actually as a local police officer came to check on my car, which was parked on the side of a main road nearby...thankfully I only had to rush through the last couple of shots before packing up my gear to explain myself to the officer :) The light pollution on the left is from the town of Goomalling just 15km to the west. Also prominent on the left horizon is the Carina Nebula while the North America Nebula can be seen just above the eastern horizon on the right of the image. The dead tree was light painted with a hand held spotlight.
