Startling New Views Of Our Home Galaxy

From EPOD

Click for ultra-hi res A unique perspective of our home galaxy. The photo left showing a glorious view of the Milky Way was taken over Pointe de Trévignon, France, on August 13, 2007. In the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere the Milky Way is gorgeous on clear, summer nights. Here the view is toward the south, from the constellation of Sagittarius (near the horizon) to the constellation of Cygnus (at top, close to the zenith). Dark interstellar clouds of dust and dark gas provide a sharp contrast with the brighter areas (regions rich in stars) of the Milky Way. The dazzling red blotch at bottom is the Penfret Island lighthouse. Another view of our entire Miilky Way, seen edge on is here.

Truly an amazing image. I was wardering how the photograph was made. This would require a really wide aperture scope as not to get star trails during a long exposure.

Per his web site, this was done with 13 combined exposures from a digital SLR, neat trick.

http://www.pixheaven.net/photo_us.php?nom=070813_8134-46

That is one incredible photo.  And thanks to RDH for his link.  Looking at the scope data, I'll admit I've never seen a scope with a 30mm focal length.  It must be a misprint.  An f/6 (fast) 8" wide angle Newtonian has a focal length of 1220 mm but noticeable coma near the film edges.

The optical quality of the photo reveals the scope must be a very-well-corrected fast system of at least 4" aperture, and refractors that fast (f/6) and of that quality are extremely difficult and very expensive to make.  Perhaps it's an f/6 catadioptric system of 4- 6" aperture, maybe a Maksutov or Schmidt Cassegrain.

A fine pair of binoculars (8x50) will reveal much of the detail seen in the photo in dark skies, although not in color.

Impressive.

Per the site, the photo was made with a Canon 30D digital SLR camera with a Sigma 30mm lens. This is a fast (F1.4) lens. With the 'crop' factor of 1.6 for the Canon CMOS sensor, this would equate to 48mm lens on a 35mm camera. This would be about a 30 deg field of view for each exposure. I would suspect that he used a high 1600 ISO setting. The 13, 10 second exposures would be combined in Photoshop to produce the enhanced panorama image.

My guess is that would be Vega, about 2/3 of the way up on the far right side.

That must be one heck of a CCD chip in that camera.  I've seen hypered film exposures that reveal that level of detail (and beyond), but never a digital.  He must have spent hours post-processing and stacking photos.  I'd still prefer to use hypered film and possibly several exposures with different filters for that type of photo.  Film results in deeper colors, better contrast and a wider dynamic range.  True, taking the photos requires better equipment and more time, but there is negligible post-processing involved.  And film produces a "warmer", higher resolution picture.  Soon that won't be true, at least for the resolution.

Ah, what do I know?  I prefer pristine vinyl and a high-end turntable over CDs for some types of music.

Still, it's quite an impressive photo.  I'd be proud to show it off.