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150 Gigapixel Sky Image Contains 1 Billion Stars
The Bad Astronomer writes "Astronomers have used two big telescopes to create an infrared survey of the Milky Way that is the largest of its kind: the resulting image has an incredible 150,000 megapixels containing over a billion stars. Something that large is difficult to use, so they also made a pan-and-zoom version online which should keep you occupied for quite some time. These data will be used to better understand star formation in our Milky Way, and how far more distant galaxies and quasars behave."
The interactive image is powered by IIPImage which happens to be Free Software and is cool in its own right (right click the image to get help — it has a full set of keybindings for navigation).
If you read up on Olber's paradox you'll find it's even actually a significantly lower density than you might expect...
the word "billion" in british english means 10^12 to a lot of people too - hence the comment i replied to. before i went into science it meant 10^12 to me, as well, but spend long enough in science and you begin to see just how few people are aware of that - and it seems to get fewer each year.
It's written in English, so it is most likely using the short-scale (American system, as you call it). The U.S. has always used the short scale system, and the U.K. (and almost all other English speaking countries) have used it since 1974.
The long system is hardly used any place outside of Europe. So, this is one of the strange cases where the U.S. and the U.K. use the same system, and it's the system used by the majority of the world. In this case, it is France/Italy/Germany/Spain/Portugal/Netherlends that insist on using their own system.
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If by "American" billion you mean "English" billion, than yes. Since Slashdot is an entirely English speaking site, it is most appropriate to use the English word for 10^9... which is billion.
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Raw CCD sensor data is usually more than 8 bits per channel (or colour filter). 16 bits per pixel is used for professional cameras, but those sensors use Bayer format for red, green and blue. Telescopes just place different colour filters over the entire sensor and correct for different levels of sensitivity.
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The sensor is supersaturated due to the star's brightness.
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