In a magnificent show of talent, a Finnish photographer created a 1.7-gigapixel panoramic image of the Milky Way, which took him 12 years to click. JP Metsavainio at 12 years and 1,200 hours of exposure to get the perfect picture of the entire galaxy. The mosaic image contains 20 million stars that exist in the vast expanse of the Milky Way.
A professional astrophotographer, Metsavainio began the Herculean project in 2009. He began to focus on different parts of the galaxy and later combined the images together to create the complete mosaic. The finished work has a width of 100,000 pixels and contains 234 distinct mosaic panels.
Taking on his blog, the photographer wrote that the reason it took so long to complete the image was due to its size and massive proportions. “Another reason is that I filmed most of the mosaic frames as individual compositions and published them as independent works of art,” Metsavainio wrote.
You can see all the photos here.
Speaking to Petapixel, Metsavainio said this was the first time such a detailed and “deep” photograph of the universe. “I think this is the first image that shows the Milky Way in this resolution and depth to all three color channels.”
The individual mosaics were sewn together using Photoshop. The full image spans 125 degrees of the sky and stretches from Taurus to Cygnus, while presenting the California Nebula, which was discovered in 1884 by EE Barnard. It also features the Cave Nebula.