The Milky Way Panorama

I’m told the universe is big and I’m not the centre of it. I thought it was really jealousy on the part of my detractors, but the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) has proved them right. Bugger.

The ESO’s Gigagalaxy Zoom project has managed to condense the entire Milky Way Galaxy into one cosmically awesome image. Over 1200 raw photographs taken with a Nikon D3 camera and 120 hours of collective exposure resulted in a stunning 800-million-pixel composite panorama of the Milky Way, as seen from Earth. Serge Brunier and Frédéric Tapissier were the two French photographers that took the photos from the Atacama Desert in Chile and on La Palma, one of the Canary Islands.

This starscape is one of three high resolution images that make up the GigaGalaxy Zoom project. The other images are slated for release this month.

Take a drive through the Milk Way using GigaGalaxy Zoom.

[via Popular Science]