Photopic Sky Survey

A 5,000 megapixel photo of the entire night sky stitched together from over 37,000 exposures. It portrays a world far beyond the one beneath our feet and reveals our familiar Milky Way with unfamiliar clarity. When we look upon this image, we are in fact peering back in time, as much of the light—having travelled such vast distances—predates civilization itself.

Seen at a depth thousands of times more faint than the dimmest visible star, tens of millions of other suns appear, still perhaps only a hundredth of one percent thought to exist in our galaxy alone. Our Milky Way galaxy is the dominant feature, its dusty arms sweeping through the frame, punctuated by red clouds of glowing hydrogen. To the lower right are our nearest neighbours, each small galaxies themselves with their own hundreds of millions of stars.

"Open your eyes to the hidden night. What do you see? This was the anthropic question of a year-long photographic project dubbed the Photopic Sky Survey, meant to reveal the entire night sky as if it rivalled the brightness of day. In it we see tens of millions of stars, the glowing factories of newborn ones, and a rich tapestry of dust all floating on a stage of unimaginable
proportions. I hope you enjoy this new view of our place in the universe as much as I have Enjoyed making it." ~Nick Risinger

Viewing this picture in full screen mode is pretty amazing. Like nothing you've ever seen before.The pic is but a thousandth of the entire picture, maybe less...