Gigagalaxy Zoom: Milky Way


Our magnificent Milky Way Galaxy sprawls across this ambitious all-sky panorama.
In fact, at 800 million pixels the full resolution mosaic strives to show all the stars
the eye can see in planet Earth's night sky. Part of ESO's Gigagalaxy Zoom Project,
the mosaicked images were recorded over several months of 2008 and 2009 at
exceptional astronomical sites; the Atacama Desert in the southern hemisphere and
the Canary Islands in the northern hemisphere. Also capturing bright planets and
even a comet, the individual frames were stitched together and mapped into a single,
flat, apparently seamless 360 by 180 degree view. The final result is oriented so the
plane of our galaxy runs horizontally through the middle with the bulging Galactic
Center at image center. Below and left of center are the Milky Way's satellite galaxies,
the Magellanic Clouds.

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