ESO - The Milky Way Panorama

[bystander]

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  Milky Way Panorama: Taken with a Nikon D3, 1,200 images and over 120 hours of collective exposure time went into this composite panorama of the Milky Way, as seen from Earth. (ESO/S. Brunier, F. Tapissier)

ESO unveils an amazing, interactive, 360-degree panoramic view of the entire night sky

The first of three images of ESO's GigaGalaxy Zoom project — a new magnificent 800-million-pixel panorama of the entire sky as seen from ESO’s observing sites in Chile — has just been released online. The project allows stargazers to explore and experience the Universe as it is seen with the unaided eye from the darkest and best viewing locations in the world.
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The plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, which we see edge-on from our perspective on Earth, cuts a luminous swath across the image. The projection used in GigaGalaxy Zoom place the viewer in front of our Galaxy with the Galactic Plane running horizontally through the image — almost as if we were looking at the Milky Way from the outside. From this vantage point, the general components of our spiral galaxy come clearly into view, including its disc, marbled with both dark and glowing nebulae, which harbours bright, young stars, as well as the Galaxy’s central bulge and its satellite galaxies.

http://www.gigagalaxyzoom.org/B.html

[bystander]

Image obtained from Cerro Paranal by observing with a 10-cm Takahashi FSQ106Ed f/3.6 telescope and a SBIG STL CCD camera, using a NJP160 mount. A true-colour mosaic of the Galactic Centre region, assembled from 52 different sky fields, 1200 images, 200 hours exposure time, collected over 29 nights, with the final image having a size of 24,403 x 13,973 pixels. (ESO/S. Guissard)

Zooming to the Centre of the Milky Way — GigaGalaxy Zoom Phase 2

The second of three images of ESO's GigaGalaxy Zoom project has just been released online. It is a new and wonderful 340-million-pixel vista of the central parts of our home galaxy as seen from ESO's Paranal Observatory with an amateur telescope.
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The image shows the region spanning the sky from the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer) to Scorpius (the Scorpion). The very colourful Rho Ophiuchi and Antares region is a prominent feature to the right, although much darker areas, such as the Pipe and Snake nebulae also stand out. The dusty lane of our Milky Way runs obliquely through the image, dotted with remarkable bright, reddish nebulae, such as the Lagoon and the Trifid Nebulae, as well as NGC 6357 and NGC 6334. This dark lane also hosts the very centre of our Galaxy, where a supermassive black hole is lurking.

http://www.gigagalaxyzoom.org/G.html

[bystander]

Image taken with the 67-million-pixel Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at La Silla Observatory. Covers more than one and a half square degree, an area eight times larger than that of the Full Moon, with a total of about 370 million pixels. Acquired using three different broadband filters (B, V, R) and one narrow-band filter (H-alpha). (ESO/S. Guisard)

The Trilogy is Complete - GigaGalaxy Zoom Phase 3 - The Lagoon Nebula

The third image of ESO's GigaGalaxy Zoom provides a 370-million-pixel breathtaking vista of the Lagoon Nebula, and demonstrates the quality and depth of the observations needed by professional astronomers in their quest to understand our Universe.

The intriguing object depicted here — the Lagoon Nebula — is located four to five thousand light-years away towards the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer). The nebula is a giant interstellar cloud, 100 light-years across, where stars are forming. The scattered dark patches seen all over the nebula are huge clouds of gas and dust that are collapsing under their own weight and which will soon give birth to clusters of young, glowing stars. Some of the smallest clouds are known as "globules" and the most prominent ones have been catalogued by the astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard.

The Lagoon Nebula hosts the young open stellar cluster known as NGC 6530. This is home for 50 to 100 stars and twinkles in the lower left portion of the nebula. Observations suggest that the cluster is slightly in front of the nebula itself, though still enshrouded by dust, as revealed by reddening of the starlight, an effect that occurs when small dust particles scatter light.

The name of the Lagoon Nebula derives from the wide lagoon-shaped dark lane located in the middle of the nebula that divides it into two glowing sections.

http://www.gigagalaxyzoom.org/W.html
http://www.gigagalaxyzoom.org/images.html