Orion to Canopus

Gems of winter sky as photographed from the dark shores of Mediterranean Sea in Patara Beach, southern Turkey. As noted by the photographer “I took 6 pictures in the first hour of 2009 to make this mosaic showing the winter stars and Milky Way at their highest. I named this land Canopia because it is one of the places to look for the southern bright star Canopus just at the horizon in the right time. To me this is one of the most fascinating sky sceneries.” Canopus is visible in this image about a degree over the Mediterranean Sea (to view constellation guide lines and to interesting targets in this image click on the black star icon above the image). Besides large red nebulosity clouds in Orion, as suggested by the photographer the red dim glow in the bottom end of Milky Way might be part of the very diffuse Gum Nebula, a greatly expanded remains of an ancient supernova.