Milky Way Panorama from Pulpit Rock

Milky Way panoramic shot taken from Pulpit Rock Lookout near Blackheath, NSW Australia.

The object in the foreground is the silhouette of the monument at the top of the lookout.

This image is a panorama of 16 images in one single row using a Canon 5DII and Samyang 14mm. Stitched together with PTGui, processed with Apple Aperture 3 and Nik Dfine2.

This was my first nightscape panorama that I’ve stitched together. I was initially shooting single images for the night but while I was there I ended up doing some (very) quick and dirty shots, in very rough alignment, so that one day I might learn how to stitch them together. It only took me about a year to get around to it and here is the result.

You can see between some stitched shots the stars don’t quite align correctly, notably just above the galactic center of the Milky Way, which is a result of lens distortion on such a wide-angle lens and not having enough suitable overlap between the shots. Next time around I’ll probably do 2 rows of images for the pano and maximise the amount of overlap.