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The Night Sky In 800 Million Pixels
An anonymous reader recommends a project carried out recently by Serge Brunier and Frédéric Tapissier. Brunier traveled to the top of a volcano in the Canary Islands and to the Chilean desert to capture 1,200 images — each one a 6-minute exposure — of the night sky. The photos were taken between August 2008 and February 2009 and required more than 30 full nights under the stars. Tapissier then processed the images together into a single zoomable, 800-megapixel, 360-degree image of the sky in which the Earth is embedded. "It is the sky that everyone can relate to that I wanted to show — it's constellations... whose names have nourished all childhoods, it's myths and stories of gods, titans, and heroes shared by all civilisations since Homo became sapiens. The image was therefore made as man sees it, with a regular digital camera." The image is the first of three portraits produced by the European Southern Observatory's GigaGalaxy Zoom project.
Because only criminals use torrents.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Funny thing is, that's not the picture. The photographer, Brunier, decided to lower every copy he released electronically to either 18MP max, or be that one zoomable version. The 800MP version is only available through him, only for professionals, and he holds the copyright.
What the dick pretty much did, was give the astronomical community something to clap about and use to get more of an audience, while getting his own name on it. He didn't do anything serious with this, like let other people have it, or use it.