I went roadtripping with three friends to Sutherland over the weekend - home to the South African Observatory and the SALT telescope (www.salt.ac.za)
Sutherland is famous for its clear skies and bright starlight (1800m asl in a very arid and remote area). There were some clouds, and since it was full moon, I had to take my photographs after sunset and before moonrise.
This photo was taken from a tripod with a normal 50mm lens looking upward at the sky. It shows the centre of our (spiral) galaxy (part of the milky way) containing the 'tail' of the constellation Scorpio. No telescopes or special equipment were involved. Even at 15sec the Earth's rotation starts to streak the stars, so I could not go for a longer exposure and had to treasure every photon from my F1.8 lens at ISO1600. Overall I'm very happy with the result. (I'd love a star tracker for next time, though)
The colours are genuine, and seem to match the M7 cluster's surrounding colouration as seen at //antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050406.html (central-left in my picture).
Almost no editing. Convert from RAW, slight contrast boost, resize, sharpen.
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