Astronomers at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum have compiled the largest astronomical image to date. The picture of the Milky Way contains 46 billion pixels. In order to view it, researchers headed by Prof Dr Rolf Chini from the Chair of Astrophysics have provided an online tool ( http://gds.astro.rub.de/ ). The image contains data gathered in astronomical observations over a period of five years.
Using the online tool, any interested person can view the complete ribbon of the Milky Way at a glance, or zoom in and inspect specific areas. An input window, which provides the position of the displayed image section, can be used to search for specific objects. If the user types in "Eta Carinae", for example, the tool moves to the respective star; the search term "M8" leads to the lagoon nebula.
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-milky-photo-billion-pixels-largest.html
[Abstract]: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asna.201211717/abstract
[Source]: http://rubin.rub.de/en/largest-astronomical-image-all-time
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Friday October 23 2015, @12:46PM
Well, if the headline would say "All past time" or "In history" or anything it would still be tremendous, but probably also correct. The current headline includes a prediction of the future and will be proven wrong as soon as the next pixel is stitched to the current image. Sorry for being pedantic, but that kind of headlines imo really costs credibility
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2015, @02:14PM
Well, you know, in the future they'll have much better compression algorithms, so the pictures will be much smaller. ;-)
(Score: 2) by unzombied on Friday October 23 2015, @06:56PM