Explanation:
If you could go far away from the Earth and look around the entire sky --
what would you see?
Such was the goal of the
All-Sky
Milky Way Panorama 2.0 project of Axel Mellinger.
Presented above
is the result: a
digital compilation of over 3,000
images comprising the highest resolution
digital panorama of the entire night sky yet created.
An interactive zoom version, featuring over 500 million pixels, can be found
here.
Every fixed astronomical object visible to the unaided eye has been imaged, including
every constellation,
every nebula, and
every star cluster.
Moreover, millions of individual stars are
alsovisible, all in our
Milky Way Galaxy, and many a
thousand times fainter than a human can see.
Dark filaments of dust lace the
central band of our Milky Way Galaxy,
visible across the image center.
The satellite galaxies
Large and
Small Magellanic Clouds are visible on the lower right.
This was not the first time Dr. Mellinger has embarked on such a project:
the results of his first All-Sky Milky Way Panorama Project, taken using
photographic film, are visible
here.
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