Largest true-color photograph of the night sky ever

[ISL]

From the author: http://skysurvey.org/blog/2011/2/17/for-all-the-nights-stars

I was surprised to find that this wasn't a compilation of Sloan images, or one of the larger sky survey collaborations. This appears to be a one-person project.

[MartinMcGirk]

I guess because the title here says "photograph" it didn't occur to me until the second visit that I could click and drag to look around. When I did though I got hit with the "Oh wow. That's incredible." sensation.

I love this.

[jsilence]

same here

[antirez]

Impressive to see how big (near) the Andromeda galaxy is compared to all the rest.

[cellover]

Andromeda looks actually really big! It reminds of this post on APOD showing the apparent size compared to the moon: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061228.html

Mind = blown.

[Pitarou]

It looks so different like this!

The Andromeda Galaxy was easy to spot, but I couldn't find any of the constellations I'm familiar with (until I found the "Show Constellations and Objects" button).

[jimmytidey]

Does anyone know what the clouds of black are in the galactic plane? Is there something in the way, or are there no stars there?

[nfg]

Dust and gas blocking light from the stars behind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_dust + http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_lane

[wreegab]

Just found you can zoom with the mousewheel. Zomming in on what appears an interesting feature reveals more and more details. This is just awesome. I can't help but feel more insignificant than usual when exploring this sky map.

[rtkwe]

It'd be even cooler if there were deeper zoom levels which linked in images specifically of a particular object. Say I find and zoom in on the Horse Head Nebula I get to images of that specific object.

[userulluipeste]

It would had been better if this sky map was not only Earth-centric, but also had Earth's polar coordinate system, or at least Earth's rotation axis. Here if you look "up" and rotate the sky, there isn't a North Star sitting there, and that's weird.

[cellover]

Smallest false-color tiny FOV long exposure photograph from Val Thorens ever: http://pilgrimbreak.com/sites/default/files/DSCF2027.JPG

[tade]

This looks amazing. I wish the app was available to us foreigners as well.

[tehwalrus]

I am about to buy an iPad for the first time, and I thought "this would be a great app, cool!" and clicked on the store link.

So annoying that it's US store only - why do devs do this, anyone know?

[leephillips]

This is so well done - I especially like the galactic reference in the lower left corner, that shows the FOV and direction. I promise not to say anything unkind about Flash for at least a week.

[koala_advert]

I wish there was an easy way to save the current view as a PNG. I could set it to full screen and use Print Screen, but the app icon and interface buttons would need to be edited out.

[jonah]

You could probably shift the view up a bit, take a second screenshot and stitch the two together well enough for a wallpaper.

[ds_]

Indeed, it would make a nice wallpaper.

[zonkey]

Is there a reason why it appears more populated and dense in the middle as opposed to the upper or lower regions? Is that the plane of our galaxy, or something to do with the light?

[ds_]

Yes, it's the plane of our galaxy. If you click show constellations and objects, you can see where we are in the spiral, bottom left.

[aaronsnoswell]

It's a side view of the milky way - our galaxy. You can see it at night if you look up, and you live far away enough from a large city or light polluted area.

[acheron]

Lovely picture. Looks a bit different from the sky outside my house: that's what I get for living near other people...

Anyone used their iOS app? Is it better/different than Star Walk?

[damon_c]

I didn't see this info anywhere so...

Try these keys:

a for in, z for out,

and the 4 arrow keys...

much better that way!

[nirai]

sky map with higher resolution: http://server7.sky-map.org/v2?ra=17.243&de=-38.586&zoom=2&im...

[edem]

I was able to spot the Magellan clouds, the Andromeda but where is Triangulum?

[lake99]

Just below Andromeda. Find Mirach, the brightest star below the plane of Andromeda, then go the same distance further south.

[moocowduckquack]

Can't get it to work on firefox (v26.0) on osx (v10.7.5)

[vixen99]

[eonil]

The biggest surprise to me is it requires Adobe Flash.

[ganessh]

Why it is bright only in middle and dark else where?

[cellover]

Imagine you are look at a CD from the center, you would see matter in the middle but not above nor below. It is a little bit the same thing except the solar system and our Earth are not located in the center of the galaxy but somewhere close to the edge.

[INTPenis]

Can anyone find any planets in this photo?

[warbastard]

Jupiter is there. Press on the (i) icon and it shows constellations. Jupiter's orbit is shown in green.