Posted on 07/13/2011 3:50:10 PM PDT by OneVike
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This is a stunning 360 degree panorama of the night sky that was stitched together from 37,000 images by Nick Risinger, a native of Seattle. Nick trekked more than 60,000 miles around the western United States and South Africa to create the largest-ever true-color image of the stellar sphere. The final result is an interactive zoomable sky map showing the Milky Way as it has never been seen before. Including stars, planets, galaxies and the nebulae around it.
"The genesis of this was to educate and enlighten people about the natural beauty that is hidden, but surrounds us," Risinger said.
The project began in March 2010, when Risinger and his brother took a suite of six professional-grade astronomical cameras to the desert in Nevada. By June, Risinger had quit his job as a marketing director for a countertop company to seek the darkest skies he could find.
Night after night he and his father set up the cameras on a tripod that rotates with Earth. They captured the Northern Hemisphere from the darkest corners of Texas, Colorado, Arizona, and California. ; Nick and his father sought out the driest and darkest places so as not to have their images effected by any light. Nick set his cameras up in a way that they would be able to automatically take between 20 and 70 exposures each night in three different-color wavelengths.
While in Texas they could not get a night sky as clear as they wanted and finally decided to go up North. However, when they arrived the temperature was below zero,
"It was January and we were hanging out in Telluride waiting for the weather to clear in Arizona or Texas. "Finally we realized the weather was hopeless down south, but it was perfectly clear where we were." They drove an hour away, set up near a frozen lake, and sat in their car with the heat off for 12 hours as the temperature outside dropped to minus 6 degrees Fahrenheit.
"I would have loved to turn the car on for heat, but I was afraid the exhaust would condense on the equipment and make a shutter freeze or ice up the lenses," Risinger said. "Certainly it was the coldest I've ever been, but I've still got all 10 toes and fingers."
The southern hemisphere was captured in two trips to South Africa, not far from the site of the 11-meter Southern African Large Telescope. While shooting the photos in Africa they were invited to stay at a farmers home, and together they enjoyed the evening as the farmer was an amateur astronomer himself.
Upon finishing, he used a combination of standard and customized astrophotography software to subtract noise from the cameras, stack the three colors on top of each other, link each picture to a spot on the sky and stitch the whole thing together. All this he had to teach himself by using online tutorials.
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Give it time to load. the 360 cubed scrollable view is awesome.
Try zooming with the wheel.
Some folks believe this is all accidental.
cool.
The fool has said in his heart,"There is no God." They are corrupt, and have done abominable iniquity; There is none who does good.space Psalm 53:1 NKJV)
Thanks for sharing.
Who cares, missed it the first time, and this kind of thing is worth a second post. VERY cool.
e.g.: Ian McCulloch. $;-)
Driving up from East TN to Greenbank Observatory, there is a little valley the road goes through and along the road there are no lights. On the way up one night when there was no Moon, I stopped and got out of my Rodeo to view the sky. The stars were bright enough that when I dropped some change reaching into my pocket to extract my keys, I could see the change on the ground and cows off in the distance. The change was just pennies, so I didn’t pick them up. The star light was bright enough to see a barn off in the distance, approx 1/2 mile away! A plane crossed the sky from horizon to horizon, giving an eerie feeling of supreme isolation, as if stranded on a distant planet.
This is a remarkable site. Thanks to all who make such site available.
btdt. ;’)
Thanks ApplegateRanch.
Astronomy Picture of the Day — Explanation: A Journey Through the Night Sky
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2722490/posts
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110520.html
I've described it as appearing to be standing on the viewing deck of a spaceship, because it would not look that much different except it would be in all directions.
My Sony point and shoot, 30 second exposure on a tripod gathers an amazing amount of light. If there is any moonlight, even a cresent; and the entire valley lights up as if in daylight. Just with stars in the sky instead.
Nice post!
What makes this better than the one at Nasa, is it is interactive, then another one there allows you to zoom in many many times as the clarity continues to get better.
Thanks for the very descriptive memory.
It’s memories like that which the Lord wanted us to have and that is one of the reasons he painted such a beautiful sky for us.
Yes, yes! And just think, the natives to this continent could have that glorious light show on any given night just about anywhere ane hundred yards from the camp fire!
bookmarked
True, as much as i like modern technology I do wish I could get away from it a lot quicker than i can.
Heck, your experience proves that even in the middle of nowhere, you are still surrounded by modern technology, ie. the jet plane you saw overhead in the distance over head.
Do you remember the movie, “The God’s must be Angry”?
I was always impressed by the modern technological age clashing with the almost stone age environment of the guy who saw the coke bottle. He takes it back to his people, and they use it for many tasks. The people start to fight over it, so he decided to return it to the god that dropped it out of the sky. In this case the god was the airplane overhead. Even in the far reaches of inner Africa where the bushmen lived, modern technology was present.
I’m sorry, the name of the movie was, The Gods Must Be Crazy”, not angry.
Thank you SO much for posting this. So cool.
And then be the main course for some cougar who was also out admiring the stars. :)
There was a reason our ancestors feared the night.
From my front porch I have a ridge that blocks my view of the Smokies toward North Carolina. That ridge is called ‘Indian Ridge’ and it was used by the Indians as a ‘highway’ into and out of the Appalachian chain of mountains where the great Cherokee Nation held regular meetings. It is said that a trail running along the spine of the ridge was a ‘trotting path’ along which traveling Indians ran to and from meetings, etc. The interesting thing about those runs were they were done even at night, by Moonlight or Starlight. D. Boone learned the trick from friendly Indians. It is sadi that runnig the paths caused not as friendly iIndians to leave the man alone because they figfured the runner had to be Indian. Near my home there is a trickling creek, Carroll Creek, which in Boone’s time was a more formidable stream. D. Boone left the ridge one evening during a run and Indians chased him. He hid under falls in that creek not a mile from my house.
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