posted 10-30-2015 10:23 PM
Researches from German university Ruhr-Universitat Bochum spent half a decade creating the largest astronomical image created to date, a 46-gigapixel image of the Milky Way, which is now available via an interactive online viewer. The image is made up of 46 billion pixels, and the file weighs in at a hefty 194GB in size. The individual photos were taken at the Cerro Armazones Observatory in Chile in an effort to document objects of 'variable brightness' in our galaxy. Images were recorded night after night, studying 268 sections of sky to look for objects dimming and brightening over time, signaling the presence of a planet moving in front of a star, for example.
In total, the finalized 46-gigapixel image has a resolution of 855,000 x 54,000, and according to the space survey's lead Moritz Hackstein 22,000 Full HD TV screens would be required to display it at its full resolution.
The online viewer includes controls for panning and zooming, as well as JPEG quality controls and color adjusters. The image's coordinates are also displayed.
posted 10-30-2015 10:23 PM
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