JP Metsavainio, an astrophotographer from Finland, posted a photo of the Milky Way panorama on his Twitter account. He spent 12 years and 1250 hours capturing this phenomenal picture. The result of his hard work is the most spectacular work of astronomy. The photographer started his work in 2009 and completed the work in 2021.
JP Metsavainio spent 12 hours taking pictures
It took him twelve years to finalize the mosaic of the statue. The photo he released is about 100,000 pixels wide, stitched together 234 individual mosaic panels and 1.7 gigapixels. JP Metsavainio gave in his blog two reasons to take so long to capture the photo. He said,
The reason for a long period of time is of course the size of the mosaic and the fact that the image is very deep. Another reason is that I collect most mosaic stalls as individual compositions and publish them as independent works of art.
The California Nebula, NGC 1499, can be seen at the bottom left of the large mosaic statue. Credit: JP Metsavainio www.astroanarchy.zenfelio.com
For the picture, its processing flow remained constant. He said that the total exposure time is more than 1250 hours and that some of the frames have more exposure time than others. In the photo, there are some extremely dull objects that are visible such as an extremely dull supernova remnant W63, the Cygnus shell. It rises about six degrees from the North American nebula and can be seen as a light blue ring. He said,
I spent about 100 hours alone for this SNR.
Image in mapped colors of light emitted by ionized elements, hydrogen = green, sulfur = red and oxygen = blue. Credit: JP Metsavainio www.astroanarchy.zenfelio.com
According to the photographer’s blog, the other large and faint supernova remnant can be seen in Cygnus to the right of the image. G65.5 + 5.7 is as big as the most famous Veil Nebula. There are more than 60 exposure hours for this SNR alone.
A close-up of the main image shows the Sharpless 124 and the Cocoon nebula with a dark gas stream at the bottom. Credit: JP Metsavainio www.astroanarchy.zenfelio.com
Accessories used for the photo
He has used various optical configurations for this mosaic image over the years. Until 2014, he used an old Meade LX200 GPS 12 “range, QHY9 astrocam, Canon EF 200mm f1.8 camera optics and Baader narrowband filter set. After 2014, he started with 10-micron 1000-equatorial mounting, Apogee Alta U16 astro- camera., Tokina AT-x 200mm f2.8 camera lens and the Astrodon 50mm narrow-band filter set. start using “A credit camera was Lodestar and Lodestar II. Netizens praised the photographer’s dedication.