Starship Asterisk*

The Milky Way Over Tenerife

Explanation: Have you ever seen the band of our Milky Way Galaxy? Chances are you have never seen it like this -- nor could you. In a clear sky from a dark location at the right time, a faint band of light is visible across the sky. This band is the disk of our spiral galaxy. Since we are inside this disk, the band appears to encircle the Earth. The above spectacular picture of the Milky Way arch, however, goes where the unaided eye cannot. The image is actually a deep digital fusion of nine photos that create a panorama fully 360 across. Taken recently in Teide National Park in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, the image includes the Teide volcano, visible near the image center, behind a volcanic landscape that includes many large rocks. Far behind these Earthly structures are many sky wonders that are visible to the unaided eye, such as the band of the Milky Way, the bright waxing Moon inside the arch, and the Pleiades open star cluster (can you find it?). The deep exposure also brings out many sky wonders normally beyond human perception, many of which are labelled on the annotated image version, including Barnard's Loop, visible above as the half red ring below the Milky Way band.

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Gorgeous image! Help me get my mind around this - are we looking toward, away from, or tangent to the galactic center, or ?

dp wrote:
Help me get my mind around this - are we looking toward, away from, or tangent to the galactic center, or ?

Orion is away from the galactic center.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way wrote:

Click to view full size image

beautiful Milky Way view.

Can anyone please tell me what equipment was used to make this picture and how many photos were stitched together?

The explanation answers part of your question: "The image is actually a deep digital fusion of nine photos that create a panorama fully 360 across." Correspondence with the photographer includes that he used "a 15 mm full format fisheye lens." You might find additional information on his website, which is here: http://www.starryearth.com

Beware.... lots of gorgeous pictures there! You might want to make sure you have time to browse before visiting!

Very nice image!

Oooooh - and I always love the 'human perception' link!

^ What Indigo said!

And the perceptions page, from 2009, has a link to a current (today's!) Bad Astronomy column (which puzzled me initially -- how did the APOD dude link to a future column?! <g> Obviously, I need coffee.) which is very cool: Astronomers may have witnessed a star torn apart by a black hole.

One of the many things I love about APOD... so many paths to take with such interesting destinations!

This is a wonderful photograph, but whoever made the overlay needs to learn a thing or two about typography. That awful, phoney, calligraphic font (Zapf Chancery, I think) makes it difficult to read. A simple sans serif font is what's called for here.

Quite easy to read on the large annotated version linked to from the explanation:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1104/te ... d_3000.jpg

keerthi2kiran wrote:Can anyone please tell me what equipment was used to make this picture and how many photos were stitched together?

owlice wrote:The explanation answers part of your question: "The image is actually a deep digital fusion of nine photos that create a panorama fully 360 across." Correspondence with the photographer includes that he used "a 15 mm full format fisheye lens." You might find additional information on his website, which is here: http://www.starryearth.com

Beware.... lots of gorgeous pictures there! You might want to make sure you have time to browse before visiting!

From the exif data: Canon EOS 5D Mark II; 15 mm f/2.8; Manual exposure, 30 sec, f/3.2, ISO 3200

owlice wrote:^ What Indigo said!

And the perceptions page, from 2009, has a link to a current (today's!) Bad Astronomy column (which puzzled me initially -- how did the APOD dude link to a future column?! <g> Obviously, I need coffee.) which is very cool: Astronomers may have witnessed a star torn apart by a black hole.

One of the many things I love about APOD... so many paths to take with such interesting destinations!

It links to the Bad Astronomy blog homepage, which updates with every new blog posted.

Ben, thanks, and I know... but in my under-caffeinated state, I did not initially realize that! As I said, I was initially puzzled, but once reality dawned, I sat here and laughed and laughed at myself! Kind of like the moment oh, so many years ago when I woke up after a Night Out, was washing my hands, and realized I could see! It was a miracle!!!! Fortunately, it occurred to me to check my contacts case (empty, of course) before I started screaming and jumping up and down at the miracle, so my housemates at the time did not have to witness that particular caffeine-free stupidity.

delete dupe,
dunno how/where that one came from ! Nor how to get rid of it, sorry

bystander wrote:

keerthi2kiran wrote:Can anyone please tell me what equipment was used to make this picture

From the exif data: Canon EOS 5D Mark II; 15 mm f/2.8; Manual exposure, 30 sec, f/3.2, ISO 3200

Nice bit of Sherlock there bystander,thank you. I was about to post, in similar frustration to keerthi2kiran, that very little 'technical and howwoz' seems to be the order of the day on many sites now.
Like - "please stand back in awe and wave hands in air" other participation including thinking is not required.

As for APOD there is an increasing tendency to splatter the text with tedious links whilst missing the real interesting one like what >"deep digital fusion" < is (!! leaves me coldly fuseing )

sorry /rant

Malcolm.[/quote]

MalcolmP wrote:... like what >"deep digital fusion" < is ...

Well, it's a fusion of many individual pictures, and it's done digitally, and it's, like, deep, man.

Rob

rstevenson wrote: and it's, like, deep, man.

Is this getting rhetorikule?
Yer, so deep that that we'll meet a yellow submarine

Enjoyed studying the set of photos - the 360 degree layout takes a moment or so to transpose it in your mind to a "view as you turn in a circle" to get the full impact.