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The winter Milky Way

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Abhijit Patil, taken from Alabama Hills, California

The jewels of the northern Milky Way stand out above this rock formation — from the Pleiades (M45) and the California Nebula (NGC 1499) on the right up to the Heart and Soul Nebulae (IC 1805 and IC 1848). At top center lies the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), our nearest large galactic neighbor. The image is a four-panel vertical panorama shot with an astromodified Nikon Z 6II mirroress camera, a 24mm lens, and UV/IR-cut and Hα bandpass filter. The sky panels are stacks of 15 two-minute tracked subframes taken at f/2 and ISO 800.