Like Google Maps for the Milky Way
October 21, 2015 10:46 AM   Subscribe

You can browse the largest assembled astronomical image of all time, 46 billion pixels, in a Google Maps-like interface covering the Milky Way. There are a lot of stars.
posted by clawsoon (8 comments total) 28 users marked this as a favorite
 
Similar vein: the Sky Map (formerly Google Sky) app is an amazing tool for casual astronomers. You hold the phone up and it names the stars and the constellations you are looking at. Pretty magical with kids under a clear night sky.
posted by bonehead at 11:06 AM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


the Sky Map (formerly Google Sky) app is an amazing tool for casual astronomers. You hold the phone up and it names the stars and the constellations you are looking at

The couple of iOS apps I have tried with this functionality were always off by a large margin, though. They never really seemed to know which way I was actually pointing the phone.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 11:17 AM on October 21, 2015


My God, it's full of stars
posted by mazola at 11:31 AM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


There are no names on this map. We're lost out here in the stars.
posted by clawsoon at 11:34 AM on October 21, 2015


Sky Guide works pretty well on iOS and got decent reviews from CNET and MacWorld.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:39 PM on October 21, 2015


Nice, but needs street view.
posted by Naberius at 1:47 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


I've tried all day to look at this new image without success. Server just seems terribly overloaded.

I like SkySafari Plus for a mobile app for backyard astronomy. It does an excellent job for helping you find objects in the night sky. But it's more of an atlas; from the description this image is more of an artwork.
posted by Nelson at 2:55 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm honestly not sure what qualifies as an astronomical image for various reasons but I'm surprised it would only be 46 gigapixels. SDSS claimed a terapixel in 2011.
posted by edd at 1:36 AM on October 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


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