Crater Lake Panorama

This is my first try in taking panorama's. I've done everything according to a book with setting manual focus and exposure, on a tripod, etc, but the middle got blown out a bit.
I'v played a little with the image and decided it looks decent in blue.
Any recommendations for the future on how to keep parts of the panorama exposed equally?
Thanks

You basically need to check the meter reading across the whole scene. Start at one side and pan across while looking at the meter. You can take a frame of the brightest segment and check the histogram. If it's not blown you should be good to go. You can always darken it later to match the rest of the scene, but not if it's blown.

I meter the scene in Av mode. Then switch to Manual with same settings and do the pano thingy. Has worked for 99% of all my pano's.

If the day is clear enough and the light falling on all of the scene is the same, you could take an incident light reading with a handheld meter, use a gray card for metering, or use the Sunny f/16 rule and manual exposure.

If it's a partly cloudy day or the light is changing rapidly, then it becomes more of a challenge.