W....I....D....E .......... Field

[JA]

When your widefield just won't cut it, don't despair, ESA's got your back ....

1.7 Billion Stars in 360° !!!

Use the navigate button top left to move around in image. See Andromeda, LMC, SMC esp - pan mid-lower right

https://youtu.be/8cXURHmtf3I

Screen Grab small excerpt attached

Best
JA

[leon]

Well JA, it sure is wide field, but it doesn't do much for me to be honest.
Thanks for posting though.

Leon

[JA]

Tough crowd around here :D:D:D

Thanks Leon

Best
JA

[Atmos]

Most of the stars are so small it almost looks starless ;)

[AstroBogan]

This is actually amazing!

[LewisM]

Shouldn't this be in General chat? I mean - no offence - you didn't take the images JA :) This forum is more about personal efforts.

It does look starless, and remarkably bland actually.

[JA]

It could be in various areas - I remember thinking about where to post it at the time and decided here as appropriate as it was deep space and most relevant to the subject matter regardless of the author.
Glad you enjoyed it :D:D:D
No offence taken.

Best
JA

[LewisM]

And none intended - afterall, you didn't create it, just posted it. I'll tell ESA directly :P

[JA]

OK go get 'em ! :D:D:D

But in their defence, or atleast in relation to the image and video I posted as a link from youtube - We are looking at highly undersampled images. Not undersampled by their cameras or technique, but the medium: Youtube at 1080P or even 4K or my screen grab from youtube at 1080P.

Their original image is a mosaic they say of 1 Gigapixel as a 360 degree view. They have a 40,000 x 20,000 pixel PNG image available for download, which unfortunately crashes for me. The next size down available is a 4,000 x 2,000 pixel image which shows more detail and tiny stars.

In the youtube video or the low resolution screen grab I attached the horizontal field of view is approximately 100 degrees, so with Youtube at 1920 x1080 and at max screen on a 1920x1080P monitor, that's a screen image scale of 187 arcsec/pixel. That will smooth out (read lose) a lot of stars. Even if you up it to 4K on Youtube (a benefit with a 4K screen, but somewhat better nonetheless) on a 4K screen ( 3840 x 2160) screen image scale improves somewhat to 94 arcsec/pixel, but will still hugely undersample and smear or hide detail otherwise present in the original image data.

Even though effectively the same as 4K video in resolution the 4000x2000 pixel JPG image gives some insight in to how spectacular the 40,000x20,000 might be even on our typically non-4K monitors because we can zoom in. Any way here's a link to the 8 Megapixel and 800 Megapixel images I just spoke of:

8 Megapixel JPG (It downloads OK for me)
http://sci.esa.int/science-e-media/images/ESA_Gaia_DR2_flux_colour_cartesian_ 360.jpg

800 Megapixel PNG(Not so much :D, hopefully others have more luck.Mine is still trying!!!)
http://sci.esa.int/science-e-media/img/24/ESA_Gaia_DR2_AllSky_Brightness_Colo ur_Cartesian_40kx20k.png


Best
JA

[RB]

Just saw this.
Moved it to General Chat.
Only work that is taken by the OP is allowed in the Deep Space, Solar and Terrestrial sections.

Cheers
RB

[JA]

Apologies.

Best
JA

[RB]

:thumbsup:

[sil]

All I see is compression artifacts. And oddly I now have a craving for a kransky sausage.

[Oddity]

I was able to open the 800MB version linked by JA:
http://sci.esa.int/science-e-media/img/24/ESA_Gaia_DR2_AllSky_Brightness_Colo ur_Cartesian_40kx20k.png

in IrfanView:

https://www.irfanview.com/

Cheers :)

[JA]

^Thankyou Andrew I will have to try infranview. How did you find the 800MB image?

Best
JA

[Oddity]

For a good 20 seconds there I thought you were asking how I managed to find it (as opposed to "how is it?") which threw me given that you were the one who linked it!

Anyway, it's quite amazing, ... although if you zoom in too far it does start to become a bit of a wash of endless stars, but LMC is quite stunning. Actually I enjoyed the zoomed out view the most (probably making the 800MB a little redundant!) but all in all very nice.

Thanks for posting it!