Oct 26, 2021 23:00:00

2.16 gigapixel super-giant panoramic photo of the Milky Way composed of 25 million stars is now available

Finnish astrophotographer JP Metsavainio has released a huge 2.16 gigapixel panoramic photo of 301 images of

the Milky Way. The total exposure time of the photographs taken over about 12 years is 1500 hours, and it is a large-scale work with about 25 million stars.

Astro Anarchy: Grand Mosaic of the Milky Way is now large than ever
https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2021/10/grand-mosaic-of-milky-way-is-now-large.html

The panoramic photo released by Metsavainio can be seen from the following. However, the image displayed at the link destination is reduced to 7000 x 1150 pixel resolution.

000-GrandeMosaic140DegreesLONG + copy.jpg (7081 × 1150)

In March 2021, Metsavainio also released a huge panoramic photo of the Milky Way. The panoramic photo released this time is the one released in March 2021 with more images added.

The 1.7 gigapixel 'Milky Way' shot over 12 years is now available --GIGAZINE

The resolution of the panoramic photo is 120,000 pixels wide x 18,000 pixels high, and the angle of view of the photo is 145 degrees wide x 22 degrees high. Since the images that make up the panoramic photo are developed in three color channels, they were taken at least three times with different filters. In addition, long exposures are used to capture the faint starlight, and the average exposure time is 25 hours.

This is one of the images used in the panoramic photo. All the points in the image are the light emitted by the stars.

The Kurage Nebula ( IC443 ) in Gemini looks like this.

Metsavainio has been meticulously planning to take huge panoramic photos of the river in the sky since 2008, dividing the charts on the star chart software

Cartes du Ciel for amateur astronomers, 300 from 2019 to 2021. He said he continued to take more than one photo and superimpose them.

The task of connecting all 301 images was like a complicated puzzle, Metsavainio said. “Getting the last piece of the puzzle is always a thrilling process, but as many have experienced, it's very frustrating to find that one piece is missing. I also had that kind of thing. I can't find anything on the HDD that I should have taken about three years ago. As a result, I retake the lost photo and take this huge one. I had to wait a very long time, weeks, to complete the puzzle, 'he said.