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Zoom into the Milky Way

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  • 26-10-2012 10:02am
    #1
    ZeRoY
    Registered Users Posts: 959 ✭✭✭


    From the Guardian yesterday:
    An international team of astronomers has created a vast, zoomable image of some nine billion pixels showing more than 84 million stars in the central 'bulge' of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The image is so large that, if printed at the resolution of a picture in an ordinary book it would be 9 metres wide and 7 metres high

    Big-Picture--Milky-Way--b-009.jpg


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    #2
    ThunderCat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,385 ✭✭✭ThunderCat


    Thanks for posting. That is seriously impressive. Unbelievable stuff.

    Quick question for the vast majority of you that know more about this stuff than me - When we are looking towards the Galactic centre like in that photo, which of the spiral arms are we looking at? And is the black hole at the centre of our galaxy just beyond the spiral arm we see or is there another spiral arm(s) beyond the one we see before the black hole? Seems to me that dispite the millions of stars in the photo, we probobly can't see the majority of the stars in our own galaxy.


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    #3
    Rubecula
    Registered Users Posts: 8,551 ✭✭✭Rubecula


    Draw a spiral on a piece of paper, then draw a second spiral on the same piece of paper interlocked with the first. Then pick up the paper, look at it edge ways, very thin isn't it? Which of the interlocked spirals are you looking at when you look edge on?

    This is the only way I can think of explaining it to you. :)

    And yes you are right a majority of stars in our own galaxy are hidden from visual observations.

    (Hope that helps)


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    #4
    ZeRoY
    Registered Users Posts: 959 ✭✭✭ZeRoY


    Rubecula wrote: »
    And yes you are right a majority of stars in our own galaxy are hidden from visual observations.

    Isn't it something like 2000 stars maximum visible with the naked eye? Depending on where you are in the world of course...

    Truly amazing work these guys have done anyway!


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    #5
    stoneill
    Registered Users Posts: 3,610 ✭✭✭stoneill


    I could hear Carl Sagan's dulcet tones going Billions and Billions .
    (Even if he claimed that he never said it)


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    #6
    WACO
    Registered Users Posts: 5 ✭WACO


    The image was taken at infrared wavelengths where dust isn't as much of a problem as in the visual, some very high extinction region are still present as the very dark patches. Impressive pic, almost 25GB in it's science format!


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