- It took Finnish photographer JP Metsavainio 12 years and 1,200 hours of exposure to create this panorama of the Milky Way.
- He not only captured the entire galaxy, but also 20 million stars that lie in that vast expanse.
- Here’s a quick look at some of the more detailed features of this massive mosaic.
Finnish astrophotographer JP Metsavainio took on the daunting task of creating a mosaic of the Milky Way in 2009. It took him 12 years to get the whole picture, which is about 100,000 pixels wide and has 234 individual mosaic panels sewn together.
Not only did he manage to capture the entire galaxy, but also 20 million stars in the Milky Way. You can view the entire photo in full resolution here.
“The reason for a long period is of course the size of the mosaic and the fact that the image is very deep. Another reason is that I created most of the mosaic frames as individual compositions and published them as independent works of art.” wrote on his blog.
Although Metsavainio is an astrophotographer by trade, this project was a pet project. All the mosaic work is done with Photoshop. “I think this is the first image to ever show the Milky Way in this resolution and depth on all three color channels,” he told PetaPixel.
Here’s an in-depth look at the image of the Milky Way that took over 1,000 hours and 12 years to collect: