September 26, 2009
On your birthday, photons that left distant stars before humans walked the Earth finally completed their journey. You began yours.
Gigagalaxy Zoom: Milky Way
Birthday · September 26, 2009
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published September 26, 2009. Credit: Serge Brunier. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Our magnificent Milky Way Galaxy sprawls across this ambitious all-sky panorama. In fact, at 800 million pixels the full resolution mosaic strives to show all the stars the eye can see in planet Earth's night sky. Part of ESO's Gigagalaxy Zoom Project, the mosaicked images were recorded over several months of 2008 and 2009 at exceptional astronomical sites; the Atacama Desert in the southern hemisphere and the Canary Islands in the northern hemisphere. Also capturing bright planets and even a comet, the individual frames were stitched together and mapped into a single, flat, apparently seamless 360 by 180 degree view. The final result is oriented so the plane of our galaxy runs horizontally through the middle with the bulging Galactic Center at image center. Below and right of center are the Milky Way's satellite galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds.
Image credit: Serge Brunier