- It took Finnish photographer JP Metsavainio 12 years and 1,200 hours of exposure to create this panorama of the Milky Way.
- He not only captured the entire galaxy, but also 20 million stars living in that vast area.
- Here is a brief look at the more detailed features of this expansive mosaic.
Finnish astrophotographer JP Metsavainio embarked on the daunting task of creating a mosaic of the Milky Way in 2009. It took him twelve years to get the whole picture, which is approximately 100,000 pixels wide and stitched together 234 individual mosaic panels is.
He not only managed to take in the entire galaxy, but also 20 million stars in the Milky Way. You can see the whole picture in its full resolution here.
“The reason for a long time, of course, is the size of the mosaic and the fact that the image is very deep. Another reason is that I shot most of the mosaic frames as individual compositions and published them as independent works of art.” Metsavainio wrote on his blog.
Although Metsavainio is an astrophotographer by profession, this project was a pet project. All the mosaic work was done on Photoshop. “I think this is the first image the Milky Way ever shows in this resolution and depth in all three color channels,” he told PetaPixel.
Here is an in-depth look at the image of the Milky Way that took more than 1000 hours and 12 years to put together: