Milky Way from the ISS - Stacked and Processed

[pluto]

This is kind of a follow on from my thread in General Chat:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=126360

I had a better go at stacking and processing the images from the end of that timelapse sequence. I'm pretty happy with the result considering the quality of the original photographs :)

Bigger version here:
http://hughsblog.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/milky-way-from-the-iss/

Original images courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center.

[iceman]

Very nice :)

[iceman]

It's now IOTW (http://www.iceinspace.com.au)!

[pluto]

Awesome, thanks Mike! :D

[Ryderscope]

Fantastic image and well worth the effort.

[pluto]

Thanks Rodney :)

[atalas]

Wonderful congrats.

[Mal01]

Has made for an awesome wallpaper, thanks! :)

[strongmanmike]

That is an amazing looking vista Hugh, our remote manned outpost in space is still a loooong way from the rest of the galaxy......one day, one day...

Mike

[Rod771]

Very cool Hugh! :thumbsup:

[pluto]

Thanks guys!
I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out :D

[RobF]

Great stuff Hugh.
Are you going to email anyone at NASA - they might love it too?
Failing that, get JJJ to spread the word with her US contacts.

[pluto]

Thanks Rob!

I wouldn't know who to email at NASA, I'll send JJJ a pm and see if she has any advice :)

[antimorris]

That's fantastic Hugh!

I'm gonna have to hunt through their database to see what other starfields they have taken. They really need to share these sort of views more often (although I enjoy seeing the Earth views, these are just WOW).

Great job (and patience) downloading each of these and then putting them together! Most impressive, indeed.

[SkyViking]

Excellent job and the result is stunning. :thumbsup:

[pluto]

Thanks Anna!
I'm sure there's other hidden gems out there in the vast archive of astronaut photography.



Thanks Rolf :)

[ourkind]

Gobsmacked! Great work Hugh :thumbsup:

[pluto]

Thanks Carlos :)

[Ross G]

Amazing photo Hugh.

Great work!

Also, congratulations on IOTW.

Ross.

[-George-]

I never understood how can we have a photo of the Milky way?

You would have to be outside of the galaxy to take a photo... do we actually have something that has flown a trilion light years away to be able to take the photo?

How does the transimission/feed even get back to earth from a distance beyond our galaxy?

None of that makes sense to me

[jayhas]

Brilliant work! thanks for sharing the image. Glad I found this out through the iceinspace newsletter...

[Blind Freddy]

Great sequence. I have a question: There are quite a few fast-moving objects in the early part of the video. I'm guessing they're not planets, since they all seem to be going in different directions. What are they?

[pluto]

Thanks! :)



I'm pretty sure they're satellites. The ones near the start look like they're in a fairly low orbit, though probably higher than the ISS, but there's one near the end near the bottom of frame that looks like it could be in GEO.

[Blind Freddy]

You can't get a photo of the whole Milky Way, but you can get a photo of the part near us, which is what we see. We are well towards the outer rim of the galaxy and, as I understand it, the central core is hidden from us by clouds of dust and gas. My guess is that what we see at night and in photos is part of our local spiral arm. (Anybody who actually knows about this is free to correct me...)

[deanm]

George - think of it as like being on a Ferris wheel ride at the circus.

You're sitting in a carriage at the edge of the wheel.

You can point your camera toward the central hub of the Ferris wheel and you will photograph the centre & the other side of the wheel and the carriages there.

Our solar system is similarly located toward the edge of our Milky Way galaxy

We don't have to travel outside of our galaxy in order to take pictures of it!.

Dean

[Asso]

Very nice image. Opened my eyes just how impressive and enormous the milky way is