Worldwide Night Sky Stitched Together In 5 Gigapixel Image

katarn writes "Nick Risinger traveled the world, using a robotic camera mount and six air-cooled cameras, each fitted with their own lenses and filters, to capture the entire night sky in one image; the largest full true-color sky survey. The project took a year to complete, and Risinger logged 60,000 travel miles. The final image is made up of over 37,000 individual photos, has a resolution of 5,000 megapixels, and took months to piece together. Risinger says, 'Travel was necessary as capturing the full sphere of the night sky brought with it certain limitations. What might be seen in the northern hemisphere isn't always visible from the south and, likewise with the seasons, what may be overhead in the summer is below the horizon in the winter. Complicated by weather and moon cycles, this made for some narrow windows of opportunity which we chased through the remote areas of Arizona, Texas, Nevada, Colorado, California and Oregon.'"

Comments

I WANT IT!!!

[jmd_akbar]

I am getting it!!!

Re:I WANT IT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll get nothing!!! NOTHING!!!

Re:I WANT IT!!!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"MAN!

I am Zaphod BEEBLEBROX!"

Re:I WANT IT!!!

[jellomizer]

"MAN!

I am Zaphod BEEBLEBROX!"

The resolution wasn't high enough, Unless you are in some artificial universe designed for you as to capture some ship you stolen. Well my I am feeling a little down and I need new Shoes.

Re:I WANT IT!!!

[Kagura]

You'll get nothing!!! NOTHING!!!

Wonka breaks it down.

Full

[Anonymous Coward]

My God, it's full of stars!

Re:Full

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Lay off the Angel Dust - 'cos down some dead-end streets, there ain't no turnin' back.

Re:Full

[somersault]

And holy shit, what are the chances? The guy that did this study is Nick Risinger, but it also happens that his name is written over the night sky in multiple places!!!! Surely this is proof that god exists, and he's a bit strange.

Re:Full

[Anonymous Coward]

My God, it's full of stars!

And Gimbel Lock - learn to code FTW.

Re:Full

[blair1q]

Does he have two heads?

Re:Full

[blair1q]

Risinger, I mean, not god.

Re:Full

[Anonymous Coward]

It's gimbal... learn to spell FTW.

Re:Full

[Muros]

Awww give the guy a break. It's an awesome picture, and requires very little effort to find and zoom into a particular patch of the sky. It isn't a space flight sim.

Re:Full

[battling]

That's so awesome!!!

Re:Full

[buchner.johannes]

So, where is the Earth?

Re:Full

[jc42]

So, where is the Earth?

At the center of the universe, of course.

Re:Full

[jc42]

So how do you find a specific spot? I find the controls rather incomprehensible. They hardly ever seem to move in the direction I want. I found that I can "drag" the picture, but sometimes it drags in a straight line, other times it rotates, and other times it does a combination of both. I keep changing the zoom level accidentally, but I can't make much sense of what seems to trigger the zooming, which is different at different times.

This is on a Macbook Pro, FWIW, using Firefox 4.

Maybe I'll try a few other browsers, and see if it's just FF that's insane and uncontrollable. So far, it's entertaining, but I'm not very successful at getting it to show me something that I know about.

(And is there some tool I don't see that lets me enter the coordinates of an object?)

Milky Way

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never seen any notion of the Milky Way in the sky... how clear is it in an unpolluted area?

Re:Milky Way

[Abstrackt]

Where I live (middle of nowhere in Canada) it almost looks like your eyes just aren't focusing properly; it's basically a white "haze" that stretches across the sky.

Re:Milky Way

[MetalliQaZ]

It is mostly visible from the southern hemisphere. 'We' see only a vague streak up north.

Re:Milky Way

[RuiFerreira]

According to some studies 1 fifth of the world population can't see the milky way at night.

Re:Milky Way

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never seen any notion of the Milky Way in the sky... how clear is it in an unpolluted area?

Southern hemisphere is amazing for seeing the milky way, especially in February. Northern hemisphere lucked out.

Re:Milky Way

[Anonymous Coward]

i travel to mozambique (south eastern africa) fairly often and it is spectacular. in more rural areas on a clear moonless night you can see by starlight. the milky way itself is unbelievably beautiful. You can see it totally clearly. I can see it pretty well where i live in nor cal too if i head up toward mt shasta. but nothing like the southern hemisphere.

-Si

Re:Milky Way

[Palmsie]

Where I live (middle of nowhere in Canada) it almost looks like your eyes just aren't focusing properly; it's basically a white "haze" that stretches across the sky.

In southern California, we call that pollution.

Re:Milky Way

[raptor_87]

In an area with minimal/no light pollution, the Milky Way is about as hard to miss as the ground. It appears as a giant (10+ degree wide) ragged band with various dark spots and veins. At the right times of year/night, you can see it stretching from horizon to horizon.

But in most towns, it's just a faint bit of paleness near the zenith. And completely invisible in even a small city.

Re:Milky Way

[Weaselmancer]

I went camping in Pennsylvania once and saw it for the first time. First thing I said was "What the hell is that?"

It looks like a reflection of city lights off of smoke or clouds or something, but in a clear sky. It's a little bewildering the first time you see it.

Re:Milky Way

[Anonymous Coward]

"lucked out" has the opposite meaning of "is out of luck"

Re:Milky Way

[gknoy]

When I put my glasses on, and look at the night sky in the mountains of southern California, it's VERY visible. Sometimes. When it's above you and you don't have light pollution (rare), it's spectacular. Before I got glasses, I couldn't see it.

Re:Milky Way

[Cronock]

It's very sad that since the dawn of man we've been able to see the night sky in all it's glory on a clear and moonless night, but in the last 120 years or so it's been reduced to just a faint glimmer of what had been. Someday, I hope that we can have one night a year with no light pollution so that we could see the full glory of what's really all around us and can be seen with a naked eye.

Re:Milky Way

[Anonymous Coward]

it's incredible. very very obvious in the sky. I had never seen it until I was 17 out in Vale Colorado, and it's the only time that I can recall seeing it.

Re:Milky Way

[Joce640k]

So he's right then...Northerners can see it just fine.

Re:Milky Way

[Joce640k]

Yep, and honestly if you've never see the night sky with minimal/no light pollution then you owe it to yourself to make the effort. It's a spectacular sight.

Re:Milky Way

[praedictus]

SImilarly, I have worked in some remote areas of Brazil with little light pollution. You can actually get a feel for the immense size of our galaxy, especially looking the region around Scorpio, as the structure and depth becomes apparent in clear skies - you can see where the nebulae are obscuring the stars in a manner that shows the extent of the dust clouds. Its hard to explain unless you see it though.

Re:Milky Way

[should_be_linear]

In the big city I live in (Europe) I don't see almost anything. Only 100km away, in the country, Milky Way is clearly visible, it looks like highway for the stars on the sky... beautiful.

Re:Milky Way

[calderra]

Follow the link in TFA, see that image on the right, with the band of the Milky Way being so clear? With a truly clear sky, it's like you bluescreened the entire sky and that image is showing in impossibly high resolution. Absolutely jaw-dropping. It's so hard to understand how rural people, who can look up and SEE the stars at night, aren't foremost in space exploration. When you realize what you're seeing, you have to want to go up there.

Re:Milky Way

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very sad that since the dawn of man we've been able to see the night sky in all it's glory on a clear and moonless night, but in the last 120 years or so it's been reduced to just a faint glimmer of what had been. Someday, I hope that we can have one night a year with no light pollution so that we could see the full glory of what's really all around us and can be seen with a naked eye.

I'm severely nearsighted, you insensitive clod!

A few hundred years ago, I wouldn't be able to see even the brightest planet, because correcting my vision that well would have been very expensive. Now contacts give me 20/10 vision. You can keep your good old days. I'm incredibly happy to be alive now instead of then. No one should feel "very sad".

Re:Milky Way

[Iskender]

Now ask yourself why we can't have both.

There is not really any connection between you having glasses (a good thing) and light pollution (a bad thing).

We don't have to live in caves to get darker skies, either.

Re:Milky Way

[Digital11]

I'm in Redding and would love to see a good night sky. Is Shasta the best place?

Re:Milky Way

[sootman]

It's pretty sweet. I went camping a lot as a kid in northern California and saw it all the time. Now I live in a heavily light polluted area and can barely make out the big dipper anymore. I need to head out to the sticks again. It's definitely worth a trip to the boonies at some point in your life to see what the sky really looks like.

Re:Milky Way

[dargaud]

Well, see this image ? It was taken with an El-Cheapo compact camera, handeld, in the place with the clearest sky on earth. To answer your question: it's so bright that it appears like it's painted on the ceiling in fluorescent paint..

Re:Milky Way

[Anonymous Coward]

>According to some studies 1 fifth of the world population can't see the milky way at night.

That's because 20% of the world's population is drunk (1 fifth).

Re:Milky Way

[iggymanz]

people were flopping over dead by age 30 for that glorious stretch of time for which you yearn. I'll take this part of the industrial age any day of the week

Re:Milky Way

[phantomfive]

Where is the best place in the world to see stars? Death Valley has some of the best I've ever seen, but surely in the world there are better places?

Re:Milky Way

[BoogieChile]

Mind-blowingly amazing - From where I live in Australia, at the right time of the year, the central bulge of the galaxy is more or less right overhead with the arms spreading out on either side from horizon to horizon. Dizzying sense of gazing across unfathomable distances, standing on the shores of the infinite? You better believe it...

Re:Milky Way

[buchner.johannes]

I've never seen any notion of the Milky Way in the sky... how clear is it in an unpolluted area?

That is sad. It's probably becoming more and more common for the next generations to never have experienced how we are in this dish of stars, and to see our neighboring galaxies. A big loss in understanding the bigger world.

Re:Milky Way

[Stiletto]

That is sad. It's probably becoming more and more common for the next generations to never have experienced how we are in this dish of stars, and to see our neighboring galaxies. A big loss in understanding the bigger world.

Not really that sad. It's what we have the Internet for. I've lived most of my life in urban areas, and have myself never seen the Milky Way (or, really, more than about 30 or so of the brightest stars), but now I can if I want to, online. Plus, if for whatever reason one simply has to go see it in person, it's probably a 6-7 hour drive from most major metro areas. Not the end of the world.

Re:Milky Way

[pinkushun]

Very. At 29.793611s 29.339167e (Google maps) it's spectacular.

Re:Milky Way

[CPTreese]

It's very sad that since the dawn of man we've been able to see the night sky in all it's glory on a clear and moonless night, but in the last 120 years or so it's been reduced to just a faint glimmer of what had been. Someday, I hope that we can have one night a year with no light pollution so that we could see the full glory of what's really all around us and can be seen with a naked eye.

I share your sentiments. I lived in Anchorage AK while I was in the Army. During this time I went to the Cold Weather Leadership Course located in the middle of nowhere. At night we would see the Northern Lights and the sky was breathtaking (so was the cold).

Re:Milky Way

[RockDoctor]

I've never seen any notion of the Milky Way in the sky... how clear is it in an unpolluted area?

I don't know, I've never seen an unpolluted area.

(I have worked on 4 continents, up to several hundreds of miles from the nearest street light, which might qualify as "less polluted" areas, but not "unpolluted" by any means.)

Re:Milky Way

[TheLink]

According to some studies 1 fifth of the world population can't see the milky way at night.

That's because they don't have internet access, otherwise they'd be able to see it even at daytime ;).

http://www.youtube.com/user/mockmoon2000#grid/user/F3C868A21F33E198

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk6_hdRtJOE

Re:Milky Way

[TheLink]

Youtube is not too bad ;).

http://www.youtube.com/user/mockmoon2000#grid/user/F3C868A21F33E198

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk6_hdRtJOE

Yes it's not the same... But actually it's better than the "real" night sky where I live.

Re:Milky Way

[justthinkit]

How do you figure that Antarctica is clearer than the Atacama desert?

Re:Milky Way

[dargaud]

Seeing measurements over several years (you follow a single star continuously and record its turbulence). Both places have advantages: Atacama is warmer and can be reached all year long by truck. Dome C has less humidity (good for IR and millimetric), better seeing and windows of observation >24 hours.

Amazing

[MetalliQaZ]

It's an amazing accomplishment and truly a beauty to behold. A survey of his completed image would match perfectly with a monologue from Carl Sagan. Not only does it show the elegance of a galaxy from the inside, but the views at large angles away from the galactic plane show a liberal sprinkling of alien galaxies, the inhabitants of which could scarcely care about us puny humans and our problems.

-d

Re:Amazing

[nebaz]

show a liberal sprinkling of alien galaxies...

Aha! So you admit it! The liberals do want illegal aliens to live here.

Re:Amazing

[ChipMonk]

Salman Khan may yet do one. He did one for the Hubble image that turned up hundreds of galaxies, where we had never seen anything before.

Re:Amazing

[Opportunist]

As usual, Liberals are misunderstood. All they want is to swindle the aliens out of their galaxies so they can have it and profit from them.

Re:Amazing

[Opportunist]

I think you misunderstood the message. Sure, you can use a space telescope to get an even deeper look into the universe, billions of lightyears further that he could possibly look due to atmosphere and dust.

The message is that you can do that. A picture from the space telescope might be pretty, but you quickly toss it aside as something you can't possibly attain yourself, nothing you could ever dictate where to point it at and what to look at. This, OTOH, is something you can do, too! This beauty is at your disposal and you can enjoy it from down here.

Granted, few will have the money to travel around from continent to continent just to watch the sky. But a telescope ain't that expensive and for most people reaching a point where light pollution and smog is bearable is well within reach. Hobby astronomers' telescopes aren't back breaking investments either.

This beautiful night sky isn't something that requires a multi million dollar space telescope. It's in a hobbyist's reach!

Re:Amazing

[ChipMonk]

I do appreciate your concern for "the message" as you put it, but (1) I do have a telescope, and (2) I still enjoy hearing someone who wants to convey a passion for the subject at hand, whatever that subject may be. Richard Feynman is just as much fun to listen to as Anna Russell ("I'm not making this up, you know!").

Re:Amazing

[jc42]

We might add that astronomy is one of the "hard" sciences where amateurs can and do make significant contributions. The explanation is simple: Most professional astronomers are busy studying specific things Out There via the many expensive, high-power telescopes in the world and in orbit. Those telescopes generally have a very small field of view, needed to extract information about single distant objects. But there's an ongoing need for sky surveys, to spot interesting events that are outside the fields of view of the high-powered instruments.

This is where amateur astronomers can help a lot. You can get a small telescope and camera that's good for taking pictures of chunks of the night sky in particular wavelengths, and collect a series of pictures taken as often as is convenient for you. Compare them for changes. (There's software available that will help do this.) When you spot a change, fire off an email to the appropriate address. Some astronomer will likely aim a high-power instrument at that point, get more detailed information, and announce to the world what you discovered. If you were the first to finger the event, the thing there will probably be named for you (or someone you choose ;-). Some people who look for things like comets, asteroids or supernovae have their name on lots of things in the sky.

The professional astronomers could do all this, of course, but it'd eat into their time analyzing the data from the big telescopes. They learned long ago that there are many people in the world willing to help out for little or no pay. So they've concentrated on being nice to the amateurs, and gently teaching them how to do the job right. There's lots of information available explaining what kind of telescope and camera you should get for your interests, and how to use them to get the best astronomical information. You'll probably need to study a bunch of math, and the astronomy forums can give you good advice on relevant textbooks.

But there's not a lot of income to be made this way. You have to find it interesting. And it's not something insignificant. Astronomy needs the data that amateurs are providing with their small telescopes. You can make real contributions to what's probably the most popular scientific field, for an outlay of a few thousand dollars. And many, many hours of your time.

Re:Amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the feeling mutual? I have as yet to care about the aliens, and from here, I can do the I'm-squishing-your-galaxy-with-two-fingers gesture pretty easily.

Why do people always feel like aliens have to be superior to us and arrogant to boot?

Traveled the world!!

[SpeedyDX]

The world, consisting of Arizona, Texas, Nevada, Colorado, California and Oregon. To be fair, he also went to South Africa twice, but really, "traveled the world" seems to be a slight embellishment.

The accomplishment is nonetheless pretty damn impressive. I wonder how long it took to stitch all those photos together.

Re:Traveled the world!!

[Mouldy]

The accomplishment is nonetheless pretty damn impressive. I wonder how long it took to stitch all those photos together.

From the summary; "months" (:

Re:Traveled the world!!

[jeffmeden]

I was wondering the same thing. Why bother to include a tidbit like "What might be seen in the northern hemisphere isn't always visible from the south" when your stops include... Nothing but places well inside the northern hemisphere?

Re:Traveled the world!!

[Arlet]

Nothing but places well inside the northern hemisphere?

Such as South Africa ?

Re:Traveled the world!!

[dogmatixpsych]

Shhh, some people don't believe there is anything outside the U.S. We don't want to shatter their delusions on the jagged rocks of reality. ;)

Re:Traveled the world!!

[Rob the Bold]

The world, consisting of Arizona, Texas, Nevada, Colorado, California and Oregon. To be fair, he also went to South Africa twice, but really, "traveled the world" seems to be a slight embellishment.

The accomplishment is nonetheless pretty damn impressive. I wonder how long it took to stitch all those photos together.

In Soviet Russia, world travels you.

Re:Traveled the world!!

[Opportunist]

There's a South Africa now? C'mon, I took a look at the map, Africa IS already kinda south of the funny old place... whatisitcalled...

Re:Traveled the world!!

[Anonymous Coward]

How did he get from Arizona to Texas or possibly Colorado to Texas? Contrary to public opinion there is a state between AZ and TX. There is a choice of two states between CO and TX.

Re:Traveled the world!!

[GodfatherofSoul]

How about donating to the project to give him the funds to travel to more locations?

Re:Traveled the world!!

[lennier]

Africa IS already kinda south of the funny old place... whatisitcalled...

The Middle-Earth Sea.

Re:Traveled the world!!

[treeves]

All of which he easily could have flown over, going from one state to another.

Re:Traveled the world!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now from Sutherland In South Africa (actually further north is better) you can see the Milky Way and both Magellenic clouds...its so clear you can see the days and nights approaching as black and white stripes ...;-) Doesnt look quite like what Rush see in SGU but that is probably another galaxy.

Hope youre not from the deep south...we always joke and say jeah deep south but you cant even see the southern cross...;-)

Octoplasm

"Nick Risinger traveled the world" =

[Anonymous Coward]

"chased through the remote areas of Arizona, Texas, Nevada, Colorado, California and Oregon.'"

Wow! You can see the Dark Matter right there

[Agent0013]

Why has it takes scientists so long to work out dark matter? You can see it right there in the picture!

But seriously, I have looked at the sky where there was very little light pollution and I have never seen the red or white cloud like structures. I guess that comes out with the long exposure. It is pretty cool how much you can see without an actual telescope.

Re:Wow! You can see the Dark Matter right there

[Iskender]

But seriously, I have looked at the sky where there was very little light pollution and I have never seen the red or white cloud like structures. I guess that comes out with the long exposure. It is pretty cool how much you can see without an actual telescope.

These sky photographers tend to overdo it a bit. This is understandable, since it looks good and it's hard to emulate the really weird human vision system.

However, in reality we perceive the sky with either peripheral vision which is monochromatic or the central vision which is much, much better at seeing blue than red. Which is a shame, since this means the only red you'll ever see in the sky are some profoundly red stars.

It would be interesting if someone made a similar effort to this and processed it to emulate human vision under ideal conditions though. It would be especially valuable since many people are completely ignorant about how pollution-free skies look.

Re:Wow! You can see the Dark Matter right there

[Carnildo]

But seriously, I have looked at the sky where there was very little light pollution and I have never seen the red or white cloud like structures. I guess that comes out with the long exposure.

Your night vision isn't very good with color. Your camera has no such limitations.

download right here..

[3seas]

... server capacity exceeded,,,

Low resolution

[afidel]

This telescope will take 3.2GP images of just a fraction of an arc-minute of the night sky. A complete night sky rendering at that kind of resolution would be immense.

But did he find Stars' End?

[blair1q]

And would he still know it if he did?

Re:But did he find Stars' End?

[idontgno]

The Second Foundationists would make sure he forgot it if he did. So we'll never know.

I've lived in New Mexico and NYC, and

[Anonymous Coward]

the difference is amazing - light pollution and clarity of hte atmosphere, which is dust + water vapor (mostly) (neglecting rayleigh scattering, etc)
In NM, the milky way just about hits you over the head.
However, in Northern N England, where there is no light pollution, the stars are nowhere near as bright, and the milky way is hard to see

Great work but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing I found disappointing is that the (meaningless) constellations are marked, but things like the Magellanic clouds are only marked when you hover the mouse over them.

Incomprehensible size

[AnonymmousCoward]

Wow, just zooming in all the way on the photo there is nearly an uncountable number of stars. Zooming out only multiplies the number you can see. I don't know about anyone else, but this makes me feel really really tiny! Even seeing this photo I cannot comprehend how many of these stars and alien solar systems are within our own galaxy. And to think there are numerous other galaxies full of these as well!

Re:Incomprehensible size

[Opportunist]

And clusters, and superclusters...

Kinda makes our petty quarrels down here about this nation or that border quite insignificant, don't you think?

each pixel averages 200 galaxies

[peter303]

If you believe the current estimate of about a trillion galaxies. Of course they are not evenly distributed nor visible to a photographers camera.

Rubbish...

[Joce640k]

It's *very* easy to see the Milky Way here in Spain... ...if you go out into the country.

In the city? Not so much.

Re:Rubbish...

[OrangeTide]

because of the lights or the cheap wine?

HTML5

[Mojo66]

All Gigapixel web pages I saw use Flash to zoom around. Would it be possible to do the same in HTML5 and if yes do example sites exist?

Re:HTML5

[BitZtream]

Its certainly doable with SVG and some javascript, which I'm not sure if SVG is anywhere in the HTML5 spec, but pretty much every HTML5 capable browser DOES support SVGs enough to do this sort of thing, just needs basic a basic SVG viewer with support for scaling, javascript and images.

Re:HTML5

[Xupa]

Suck to be you, iBoughtacrapphone

Re:HTML5

[Yvan256]

Why would you want SVG for photos, which are bitmap images?

All you need is a modern browser capable of doing basic AJAX tasks.

Re:HTML5

[_0xd0ad]

You mean like Google Maps?

Re:HTML5

[_0xd0ad]

Probably because a zoom or pan is global, rather than having to scale/offset every tile image individually. Not that that's by any means impossible or even difficult...

Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

The best story Ive seen on /. yet

WorldWide Telescope

[rlseaman]

Very neat little project!

Once you build a digital image archive of the sky, various whole sky browsers become possible. The gold standard for such is WorldWide Telescope:

http://worldwidetelescope.org/

This permits overlaying various sky surveys at different wavelengths, not just a single picture of the sky.

The web client is very nice, but the Windows client is something else again. (This is a Microsoft Research project.) You should see it on a planetarium dome.

Google has another:

http://www.google.com/sky/ ...as well as an Google Earth based client to install.

Re:WorldWide Telescope

[rlseaman]

The Big Picture should also be mentioned:

http://bigpicture.caltech.edu/

and in porcelain form:

http://www.griffithobs.org/exhibits/bbigpicture.html

Others have also made the point that really cool astronomy projects are within the reach of "citizen scientists" with a modest budget.

Re:WorldWide Telescope

[scotty.m]

I thought it looked like something google would have their fingers in.
Google Sky looks like a work in progress though.

Whoa Milky way?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having never been south of the US, I've never seen the Milky Way. Too far north I figure from that photo.

I have seen meteor showers and stuff like that, but I always thought the Milky Way was something people were looking at with super telescopes.

By my count...

[rhenley]

By my count he missed one.

Linux and Gimp

[katarn]

Also of note, which I should have added to the summary; some of the tool used to make this included a laptop running Linux, and GIMP - two things near and dear to many slashdoters. I wonder if Nick reads Slashdot.

Milky Way Always Visible

[Iskender]

Having never been south of the US, I've never seen the Milky Way. Too far north I figure from that photo.

Some part of the Milky Way is visible from any part of the planet. This includes the North Pole which is the worst place for observing it.

Unless you're in Alaska you can see the galactic center too. I'm in Finland which is (barely) too far north for that. However, parts of the Milky Way are still there in places with an actually dark sky. Now if I could only get away from this city more often...

So get *far* away from cities sometime and look up. Just don't expect anything but bright stars to be in colour, that's beyond the capabilities of human vision. Also, download Stellarium from Stellarium.org: it's great and it's free software and it's even easy to use.

Looks a lot like the 5 Gp Image

[bobs666]

You will not see all the colors, since the light in the Image was collected over time. None the less it looks just like that.

You have to go to a place without light pollution. Then you have to let your eyes acclimate in the dark for 20 to 30 minutes. Of course the quality of your eye sight will factor in.

Map of light intensity of the earth

Here is just a picture of the earth at night.

Remember that you're standing...

[Overzeetop]

...on a planet that's evolving
revolving at nine hundred miles and hour...

Wow

[Slutticus]

I have no better words to describe that image. I'm going to stop working now and just stare at this image for the next 30 minutes or so and just wonder....

naked-eye version?

[adavies42]

this is pretty, but obviously the product of long exposures (and/or post). are there any similar pics out there that try to represent a real naked-eye view under ideal conditions? i'd like to know what i'd actually personally be able to see of the milky way, etc.

Re:naked-eye version?

[naturaverl]

Turn the contrast up and the brightness down on your monitor. I think that would be pretty close.

Since this is slashdot,

[Slutticus]

Here is a list of hardware and software this guy used. Nice to see open source software contributing to this amazing project. Hardware: Cameras—Finger Lakes ML-8300 monochrome Lenses—Zeiss Sonnar 85mm f2.8 Filters—Astronomik LRGB, Astrodon Ha Mount—Takahashi EM-11 Temma 2 w/ custom armature Generator—Yamaha EF1000iS for USA trips Laptop—Intel Core i7-820QM running Linux Fedora, 8GB RAM w/ 4TB external storage Software: MaximDL—mount control, image capture, and creation of calibration frames (dark, bias, flat) IRAF—many scripted tasks such as up-scaling, registration, saturated pixel replacements with scaled exposures, stacking, and median background modeling SExtractor—building each frames list of objects SCAMP—cross referencing to create position and distortion headers Swarp—reprojection and stitching of frames PixInsight—generate final LRGBHa color composite, midtones transfer function, noise reduction GIMP—final assembly, curve & saturation tweaks

Done Before

[Anonymous Coward]

This is beautiful, but the same thing has been done before by Serge Brunier, cooperating with the European Southern Observatory. See http://www.gigagalaxyzoom.org/B.html and http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0932a/ for comparison.

Kinda smooshed

[bryan1945]

It looks kinda smooshed on my smartphone. Maybe I need a microscope?

DeepZoom

[Anonymous Coward]

The zooming web UI is a great idea but the Flash/Zoomify version is clunky because it keeps the images in pyramidal Tiff format on the server. DeepZoom is a lot snappier and looks much smoother. This is partially because the images are split up into individual tile files on the server and partially because the Silverlight DeepZoom viewer is more performant than the Flash OpenZoom player.

Re:DeepZoom

[Anonymous Coward]

blah blah blah blah Silverlight

No. GTFO.

SPAAAAAACE

[lennier]

Somuchspace. Gottaseeitall. Gottagotospace.

Space!

dark in middle?

[reasterling]

So why is the milky way dark through the centre?

Re:dark in middle?

[Radar Penguin]

It's known as a dust lane. The particles of dust absorb light so obscure the stars behind.

The dust lanes in the Milky way are seen as a dark "constellation" depicting an emu by Australian aborigines:
<http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/AboriginalAstronomy/Examples/emu.htm>

Colors in the night sky

[CPTreese]

Does anyone know if the colors in the picture are added? If it was not added how long of an exposure does it take to get all those amazing colors?

Re:Millions and Millions

[sChatwin]

"There are millions and millions of stars" "They call 'em billions" Sort of Sagan-ish, but with apologies to 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre'