Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Worldwide Night Sky Stitched Together In 5 Gigapixel Image

Posted by Soulskill on from the billions-and-billions-of-pixels dept.

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.'"

9 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Full by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    My God, it's full of stars!

  2. Milky Way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

    1. Re:Milky Way by Palmsie · · Score: 3, Funny

      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.

      --
      Carl Sagan quotes get you an automatic +5 on all posts.
    2. Re:Milky Way by raptor_87 · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:Milky Way by Cronock · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  3. Traveled the world!! by SpeedyDX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Traveled the world!! by Arlet · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nothing but places well inside the northern hemisphere?

      Such as South Africa ?

  4. Re:Amazing by nebaz · · Score: 3, Funny

    show a liberal sprinkling of alien galaxies...

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

    --
    Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
  5. Re:Amazing by ChipMonk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.