Amateur Photographer Shoots Largest Ever True Color Photo of the Night Sky

cracktwo.com ^ | Saturday, May 07, 2011

[GonzoII]

Amateur Photographer Shoots Largest Ever True Color Photo of the Night Sky

Crack Two

on

Saturday, May 07, 2011

What you see above is the largest true-color photograph of the night sky ever created, shot by 28-year-old amateur astrophotographer Nick Risinger using six astronomical cameras. It’s not just the view of the sky from one location, but is instead a 360-panoramic view of the sky taken by trekking 60,000 miles across the western United States and South Africa starting in March 2010. The final image is composed of 37,000 separate photographs.Check out the massive zoomable high-definition version of the photo here.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Hey... look what you see at the close-up level !

[GonzoII]

Steady as she goes Scotty...

[fieldmarshaldj]

That’s the “1701-E”, that’s LaForge’s baby.

[dragnet2]

I like your addition to the picture.

That image is very over processed.

[windcliff]

Ping

[TNoldman]

Sky pix ping

[BenLurkin]

Very nice!

[ReneeLynn]

Ha. The final frontier...

[bigheadfred]

Below is an enlargement of M-42, which I shot from my backyard

I'm jealous.

Always wanted to be able to do that kind of fun.

[21stCenturion]

...

[fatima]

Wow.

[NCC-1701]

And some say there’s no God. They are terribly mistaken.

[VairyAngel]

WOW that is amazing. I love how the picture is interactive..

[Moonman62]

“WOW that’s beautiful, I love the magenta colors!!!”

I believe those are exploded stars.

[Patriot Babe]

OMG! That looks like one of those Langoliers

[dragnet2]

It is a lot of fun. But, sometimes it can be extremely frustrating and very difficult when it comes to capturing and tracking the object, then correctly processing the data. But when it comes together, it makes it all worth while.

[bigheadfred]

So, is most of what you are doing digital? (Duh)

I mean, do you have your telescope plugged into a laptop or something?

Or do you actually take the pictures and load them onto your computer?

[The KG9 Kid]

We’re actually coming out of a dust cloud in the Local Bubble, which is our Solar System’s remote little country lane neighborhood.

[dragnet2]

All digital and yes the scope is connected to computers. The images are obtained through the scope via a DSLR camera at the end of the optical train. The scope and camera are controlled via computers, using software, star charts, etc., and raw digital images are sent directly to the computer for later processing.

[MsLady]

Really??? Well they are beautiful. The whole thing is. I live out in the country away from any city lights. Every time I look at the night sky and the stars(by the way where I live, once in a while I get to see the northern lights) I marvel at creation and thank God for making such beauty.