large image of Milky Way

[jebeddy]

[[[ I sent this to Nemiroff and Bonnell, and got a reply suggesting that I ask my question here. ]]]

Gentlemen:

You have probably seen the recent book "Far Out" by Michael Benson, published by Abrams. Very impressive.

Following Page 84 are some double, fold-out pages. A set of four sequential faces together make up a single image of a side view of the Milky Way. Fully extended, it is 44" wide.


I contacted Abrams asking whether I could buy reprints of this Milky Way spread from their book, and they have said No.

The APOD image of NCG 4565 at

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100304.html

prompts me to write.

I want to give printed copies of an image of the Milky Way to friends, larger than 8.5 X 11 or 8.5 X 17 if possible. In my humble opinion, some sort of image like this ought to be on the walls of offices and homes throughout the world. It can serve as a reminder of where and who we are, as we go into several decades of severe stress where perspective will be especially needed.

I think I'm correct in saying that there is no real photo of the entire Milky Way, regardless of view point, right? Given the dimensions in light years, no satellite has gone beyond our galaxy, much less gone far enough with a camera to take a photo and send it back to earth, right?

So my question is, can you help me find a source for something else, at least somewhat similar to the wide image of the Milky Way as printed in the Far Out book? I want to buy reprints, and/or find an on-line source so that people can download and print it themselves.

Help in any form would be most welcome.

Thanks,

Jeb Eddy
Palo Alto, CA

[rstevenson]

This one might do as a starting point, since you can go to its site and grab as much of the image as your bandwidth can stand. Understand that this one is a view of the Milky Way from here, inside it. If we ever decide to send a probe out far enough to take a picture of our home galaxy from the outside, it'll take a few tens of thousands of years to report back.

This other one illustrates what the Milky Way probably looks like, based on the information available to the team of illustrators in mid-2008.

Hope this helps,

Rob

[bystander]

Here is another one, but keep in mind copyrights apply.

[BMAONE23]

For an alternate view, this APOD 080605 is also a great image
At the botom of the Source website page there are 16 individual mosiac tiles that encompass the galactic plane.
It would be interesting to print these out at 4' tall and cover the walls of a circular room, an expansive 360' circumfrence room.

Has anyone taken a 360deg visible light view, halved it, reversed the outer half, and superimposed it over the inner half?
This might produce a more realistic view from outside the galaxy