[ETL]

What is that at the top of the photo? It looks like the same sandy terrain that is at the bottom.

[dr_lew]

Not sand! snow! The picture is a panoramic arch from horizon though overhead to the opposite horizon. Notice that the ground is flat at each end. A fisheye shot would have a circular horizon around the edge. The two bright "stars" at the lower left are Saturn and Antares.

From the opposite horizon, the bright star below the Large Magellanic cloud is Canopus. Sirius is just below the opposite horizon, off the top of the picture as presented.

Note that NGC 2516 is partly resolved in the APOD. I think the panorama was not a pan and scan, but was put together from a series of "flat" shots.