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: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Thursday October 22 2015, @09:27PM
Down already? Cool!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2015, @09:38PM
Damn. I wanted to read the EXIF header on that picture.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2015, @09:39PM
Nah, I stuck my 46 billion atom cock in its asshole.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2015, @09:55PM
Erm . . . did you forget how small atoms are ? That size cock, is only 0.00004 inches long.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2015, @11:54PM
Atoms of what? The difference in radius between the smallest element and the largest element is nearly a factor of 10.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2015, @12:54AM
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday October 22 2015, @10:45PM
I came here to chew bubble gum, and make a joke about finally almost being able to fit my entire cock in a photograph. I guess I'll chew bubblegum.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2015, @02:12PM
I really don't get why people are so obsessed with male chickens. ;-)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 22 2015, @11:16PM
It was down before this story posted. Must be on a Windows server.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2015, @12:22AM
Tracked down on star and it was 20 pixels by 20 pixels... No detail. Where is that close up of an exo-planet crossing a start!
Goggle maps are more fun.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2015, @02:51AM
You were probably seeing the 46 billion atom doohickey as mentioned in post #253406 above.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Friday October 23 2015, @08:39AM
Google Earth has this Sky button where this data could be put right away. It would be much more fun to browse. I think 46 billion is easily dwarfed by the data for the satellite view of any major mapping service by several orders of magnitude.
(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