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(© J-P Metsavainio) |
Have you ever wondered to yourself, "Gosh, I wish I could be tiny and awed right now." Isn't it always the case that we have the answer for you?
J-P Metsavainio, a Finnish astrophotographer, has published
a 1.7-gigapixel mosaic of the Milky Way galaxy's plane after more than a decade
of painstaking work.
Metsavainio has been sharing his astrophotography online
since 2007, but his mosaic work began in 2009, when he began photographing
various nebulae around the Milky Way as separate compositions.
Between 2009 and 2021, the total exposure period is
estimated to be around 1,250 hours.
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(© J-P Metsavainio) |
Metsavainio wrote on his blog, Astro Anarchy, that it took
nearly twelve years to complete this mosaic picture.
The size of the mosaic and the fact that the image is very
deep are the obvious reasons for such a long time period. Another reason is
that I shot most of the mosaic frames as separate compositions and then
published them as separate artworks.
As a result, a complex image set is created, which is
partially overlapping and contains many unimaged areas between and around
frames. I've shot the missing data on occasion over the years, and last year I
was able to publish a large number of sub mosaic images because I prepared them
first.
He explained that stitching the images together was as
simple as matching stars and overlaying them in Photoshop, with minor color
balance and light curve tweaking in between frames.
The result is a 100,000-pixel image made up of 234
individual mosaic panels that covers a 125-by-22-degree sky area.
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(© J-P Metsavainio) |
That's a big chunk of the galaxy, with about 20 million
stars, and the full-size color picture, which measures 7,000 by 1,300 pixels,
is truly amazing. The colors represent ionized element emission; hydrogen is
shown in green, sulfur is shown in red, and oxygen is shown in blue.
I think this is the first image ever showing the Milky Way in
this resolution and depth at all three color channels, Metsavainio said on thephotography website PetaPixel.
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(© J-P Metsavainio) |
It creates a spectacularly dazzling view of our home galaxy,
one in which we can't help but become lost. Metsavainio has helpfully posted a
series of frames from the mosaic on his blog, highlighting individual nebulae,
if you're not sure where to start or want to learn more about what you're
looking at.
Published By Science Alert.
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