The Milky Way

[glenc]

This is an impressive image of the Milky Way.
http://www.eso.org/gallery/d/136986-2/phot-32a-09-fullres.jpg

It is from here: http://www.eso.org/gallery/v/ESOPIA/Galaxies/phot-32a-09-fullres.tif.html

The dark lanes in the MW show up well, especially to the left of the bulge, above M11.

[dpastern]

Whoah that is a nice piece of work. Look at those dust lanes. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Dave

[mithrandir]

"For copyright reasons, we cannot provide here the full 800-million-pixel original image,..."

Guess I'll settle for the 18M pixel version.

[dpastern]

hehehe.

Dave

[multiweb]

The high-res TIFF is superb. Details are amazing for such a wide field. :eyepop:

[mithrandir]

It's a mosaic, but they didn't say how many images they used.

The bigger one isn't even as big as my one of Wollongong. 18M vs 58M :D
The one I did of my back yard to use as an overlay in Stellarium is even bigger.

[mozzie]

wow thanks glen
mozzie

[glenc]

The very large dark area to the left of the MW's central bulge continues to amaze me.
Also, it looks like the LMC has moved from near eta Carinae leaving a dark trail.

[stephenb]

That's amazing, thanks for posting Glen.
I have been staring at it for ages trying to "get my bearings", trying to work out what the prominent stars and galaxies are.

I have located: Orion, Crux-Cent-Carina-SCP area. What is that Nebula on the far left, south of the plane? And the galaxy closer to the MW centre, also south of the plane, is that M31? Notice the defraction spikes on a couple of the brighter stars.

I've just put it on my desktop image to replace that Hubble image of the Sombrero (with all those galaxies in the background).

[glenc]

Stephen, M45 is on the far left with the faint California nebula above it.
You are right about M31. The double cluster is up to the left of M31.

[glenc]

Todays 1.3 Mb APOD image is from Gigagalaxy Zoom: Galactic Center
Credit: ESO (http://www.eso.org/) / Stéphane Guisard - Copyright (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply): Stéphane Guisard (http://www.astrosurf.com/sguisard/)
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090925.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0909/Guisard_MilkyWay_4_8bit_dse_1500-ps12.jpg

[stephenb]

I've spent most of this rainy day picking out popular objects.

I "joined the dots" with some of the more well-known constellations just for a bit of fun. Note that the 2 objects south of the plane, with the multiple diffraction spikes are planets, I guess Jupiter and Saturn.

[PCH]

Glen,

firstly thanks for posting this amazing image. It is awesome.

And Stephen, thanks a bundle for pointing out those targets. I have to confess, the whereabouts of these targets was a complete mystery to me.
Although as always, now that they're pointed out, they seem clear enough.

Seeing them pointed out has added a whole new dimension to this sort of view for me, now and in the future. So many thanks :thumbsup:

... err what's the largish blob about half past eight from Orion anyone? Any thoughts?

[stephenb]

That large blob is the Large Magellanic Cloud, The Smaller one is to the left of it. :thumbsup:

[PCH]

Thanks Stephen :thumbsup:

[stephenb]

No worries, Paul. I could go on forever, in fact I found this fun to do. Here's the SCP.

[PCH]

er, where Stephen? Should the SCP be marked somewhere? :P

[stephenb]

Hi Paul, join a line from Acrux and Acernar. The SCP is approx 1/2 on that line.

[PCH]

Thanks Stephen :thumbsup:

[glenc]

Today's APOD is by Axel Mellinger http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0911/mwpan_mellinger_big.jpg
For more detail try http://galaxy.phy.cmich.edu/~axel/mwpan2/