An anonymous reader recommends a project carried out recently by Serge Brunier and Frédéric Tapissier. Brunier traveled to the top of a volcano in the Canary Islands and to the Chilean desert to capture 1,200 images — each one a 6-minute exposure — of the night sky. The photos were taken between August 2008 and February 2009 and required more than 30 full nights under the stars. Tapissier then processed the images together into a single zoomable, 800-megapixel, 360-degree image of the sky in which the Earth is embedded. "It is the sky that everyone can relate to that I wanted to show — it's constellations... whose names have nourished all childhoods, it's myths and stories of gods, titans, and heroes shared by all civilisations since Homo became sapiens. The image was therefore made as man sees it, with a regular digital camera." The image is the first of three portraits produced by the European Southern Observatory's GigaGalaxy Zoom project.
The Coral link isn't loading for me, either... I found a scaled down version [freerepublic.com] that gives readers a decent idea of what it looks like, though.
It would appear that the Coral servers are acquiring bits and pieces as they are able. When I reloaded the link, I was able to see much more of the site than at first. Be patient... and try reloading in a few minutes.
It should be standard procedure when posting any article to Slashdot, to run it though Coral *FIRST*, so their servers can load and mirror everything. Then post the Coral link.
In general I agree with you. However, in this case it wouldn't help out a ton. Coral would get the page and the fully zoomed out image, which would at least be something, but is not the purpose of this post...there are countless wide angle photos of the sky you can find all over the internet. It wouldn't cache any of the zoomed data unless someone manually went through and zoomed in on everything.
When I saw the article, it was only about a MINUTE old, and had ZERO comments. No, I did NOT expect it to have *already* been Slashdotted. I'm glad I was quick enough to at least get the Coral servers to grab SOMETHING as the deluge began, so people could at least see a *portion* of the site before it's servers smoldered.
800 megapixels would be a very large resolution for a normal image of a simple subject like, say, a person. But when you consider that this image is covering 360 degrees of night sky, which changes nightly (constellations and planets rise and set just like the sun), the resolution is not so great. An exposure time of 6 minutes (during which everything is moving) goes to show how "blurry" even an 800 megapixel image of the night sky (an enormous subject) must be. This doesn't take anything away by the beauty of this project, but I think it's important to put sensational measurements such as "800 megapixels" in context.
On a different note:
In 2009, you photograph sky. In 2010, sky photographs YOU!.
An exposure time of 6 minutes (during which everything is moving) goes to show how "blurry" even an 800 megapixel image of the night sky (an enormous subject) must be.
He used a moving equatorial mount to correct for the earth's motion.
I thought the same thing. This isn't a particularly impressive resolution for such a large subject. Check out the kind of detail we get of the earth [nasa.gov]: 21600 by 10800 pixels!
I found even better ones [nasa.gov].. a staggering 26000x26000! I can't find an image viewer that displays them properly without crashing X.. even feh won't take it
. This doesn't take anything away by the beauty of this project, but I think it's important to put sensational measurements such as "800 megapixels" in context.
If you want to put these measurements in context, you consider what is currently occurring in astrophotography, not the extreme resolution that can be achieved by photographing smaller subjects. The resolution is virtually irrelevent, the time taken and the measures with which to achieve it are far more crucial to this.
As you quite clearly have no knowledge of such a subject (referencing you point regarding moving, which is a trivial aspect for any astrophotographer using a tracking mount / autoguider,
As the article and the 800 megapixel resolution referenced in the headline are targeted at a general audience, not astrophotography experts, and as I have a solid math/physics background, I'm in a perfectly comfortable position to help put a photograph's resolution in context. Most people who read the headline are not going to think of the resolution given in an astrophotographical context, but in comparison to the resolutions of the digital cameras they are personally familiar with.
The surface area of a sphere, is 4pi r*2, so those 800M pixels,
match the surface of sphere 8000 pixels in radius, or 50132
pixels in circumference. So each pixel represents a square on
the night sky about 26 seconds of arc in each direction. That isn't
really very accurate, most objects in the sky are lot smaller than
that. It might just have enough resolution to show some structure
in the andromeda galaxy which is (178 by 63) arc min in size.
For the night sky, 800 megapixels is impressive. But for earth, its not particularly big. go to gigapan.org and you'll find thousands of gigapixel images, including ones taken at night, requireing long exposures (even if nothing near 6 mins)
Yeah what a jackass. He spends 30 entire nights over 6 months doing photography (something that he appears to do as part of his profession) and then expects to maintain a little bit of creative control over his work? Pffft!
Sarcasm aside, grow up a bit. He's made the zoomable version available, and even aside from that 18MP is pretty darn good. It's a good quality image you are working with, and you could do quite a bit with it. I've made 40" long prints from 6.7MP images and they end up looking very good. Y
Most people who live in cities never get to see even a fraction of the night sky. Even thougb I live in rural Colorado where we can see the Milky Way fairly regularly, I want to thank you so much for sharing with everyone what we are missing out on, night after night. This is way better than TV. Cheers.
I was recently at Yosemite during the Perseid meteor shower, and I got to really look at the Milky Way "scar" for the first time with my own eyes. My parents have a house in rural Texas, but the visibility was nowhere near what it was smack dab in the middle of a wide open Yosemite field at midnight.
I spent a couple years in Antarctica [gdargaud.net]: clearest sky in the world by very far (see recent/. article about ridge A [slashdot.org]). When I was at Dome C [gdargaud.net], we would go lay down in the snow and watch the stars, never mind the sub -70C temperatures. The stars didn't twinkle at all (no turbulence) and appeared painted on a black ceiling. The main problem was getting back inside before you were frozen solid to the ground.
I had my own telescope, but my pitiful attempts at seeing anything were thwarted by the vexatious cold and my own incompetence at astronomy [gdargaud.net].
Most people who live in cities never get to see even a fraction of the night sky. Even thougb I live in rural Colorado where we can see the Milky Way fairly regularly, I want to thank you so much for sharing with everyone what we are missing out on, night after night. This is way better than TV.
Cheers.
Those of us temporarily taking up abode in the Iraqi desert also don't get to see much of the stars. The sand/dust that is always in the air is worse than looking at the stars just a mile from downtown Seattle! The dust in Iraq is far worse than any light pollution I've ever encountered while living in Seattle.
Now I think it's about time for Google to include that. I am expecting it gives me an direction from Earth to a random star on M12 , with several mode of transport (Walk, Spaceship, Wormhole)
I know I'm a couple hours late to the party, but this is just sad...
My RSS reader shows changes in feeds. The original RSS summary for this article had "its" without the apostrophe -- correctly, as anyone with half a brain knows. The latest RSS feed, and the actual story page, show "it's". Hint: if you can't replace "it's" with "it is" in the sentence, it's (yes, really) wrong.
Oh, yeah, and this is a really cool photo and etc.
Sites are claiming copyright as a concern, so you need to contact the artist to get the pic. I know downloading it is almost impossible due to the size, but really, pictures of the stars? Isn't this just tedious work that wouldn't be covered by copyright?
Here's a direct link to the full-size version of the image contained in my earlier comment: panoramic night sky view [scientificcomputing.com]. It is indeed absolutely gorgeous.
Go wide. And you'll have to go much faster than you think. Play around, but IIRC with no tracking you can only reasonably get about 20 seconds out of a 50 mm (35 mm camera) lens. Faster film gets you a deeper image but more grain of course. Most constellations fit nicely in the frame from a 50 mm lens.
Unfortunately, you won't get anything like this with film, at least not without an incredible amount of work and some really excellent tracking. Film rules for long exposures but digital is unbeatable for
1) It's been years since I did any work with film, so I'm afraid I can't help you there. I've just got a DSLR that I use now.
2) ~20 seconds. If you go very far beyond that, you'll end up with trails instead of nice clear shots. 30 seconds is passable, you'll just end up with tiny, tiny trails - probably not that noticeable unless you look closely. You may be able to stretch that out a bit more if you have near-superhuman vision, a geared tripod, and a steady hand, but I wouldn't count on it. That's
Also, I hate to double post, but make sure you lock up the mirror on your camera if you have that option. Mirror slap is never good. I just picked up a nice Manfrotto tripod/head, but I still think it takes a few seconds for any vibrations to completely settle. Locking your mirror up should take care of that. It's a minor detail, but one worth mentioning.
Unfortunately, many hosting companies make bold claims about their capabilities without actually being able to deliver on those promises. In this case, the host appears to be ovh.com [ovh.com] (judging by whois info on the IP), providing a dedicated server. Of course, this does leave open the possibility that the server is badly configured for traffic on this scale.
The server's still working. I doubt they expected the full force of slashdot. And this isn't like a normal posting, this is the sort of thing everyone will want to see for themselves.. And it can't help that it's a huge image.
You can't actually see the 800-megapixel image. You have to contact the photographer to get the full-resolution image
They have a couple of decent sized static images, some desktop sizes, and one that dynamically loads when you zoom in, ala google maps. I don't know if the last one goes to the full 800MP when you zoom.
You can't get it anywhere except the artist. I set him an email, and he sent a very prompt reply that it's for profesional use only, without actually knowing wether or not I was a professional.
I'm guessing that even though this project, GigaGalaxy Zoom, is done by the ESO, a intergovernmental organization, the image is just under license from the "artist" (in this case, "man with too much time for tedium"), so don't hold your breath about finding it anyway.
Already slashdotted! Here's a Coral link (Score:5, Informative)
I can't believe it's already been Slashdotted! I was able to grab it on Coral, so now their servers have it, and should handle the load.
Here is that Coral link to this article:
http://www.sergebrunier.com.nyud.net/gallerie/pleinciel/index-eng.html [nyud.net]
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Wow, who ever thought that the simpletons on Free Republic would give a shit about stars?
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Re:Already slashdotted! Here's a Coral link (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Already slashdotted! Here's a Coral link (Score:5, Informative)
It would appear that the Coral servers are acquiring bits and pieces as they are able. When I reloaded the link, I was able to see much more of the site than at first. Be patient... and try reloading in a few minutes.
It should be standard procedure when posting any article to Slashdot, to run it though Coral *FIRST*, so their servers can load and mirror everything. Then post the Coral link.
But that would be too easy.
Parent
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In general I agree with you. However, in this case it wouldn't help out a ton. Coral would get the page and the fully zoomed out image, which would at least be something, but is not the purpose of this post...there are countless wide angle photos of the sky you can find all over the internet. It wouldn't cache any of the zoomed data unless someone manually went through and zoomed in on everything.
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Someone links to a nearly 1 gig image file on the front page of Slashdot, and you can't believe it's slashdotted?? Really?
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When I saw the article, it was only about a MINUTE old, and had ZERO comments. No, I did NOT expect it to have *already* been Slashdotted. I'm glad I was quick enough to at least get the Coral servers to grab SOMETHING as the deluge began, so people could at least see a *portion* of the site before it's servers smoldered.
Awesome project, deceiving "resolution" (Score:3, Informative)
On a different note:
In 2009, you photograph sky. In 2010, sky photographs YOU!.
Re:Awesome project, deceiving "resolution" (Score:5, Informative)
An exposure time of 6 minutes (during which everything is moving) goes to show how "blurry" even an 800 megapixel image of the night sky (an enormous subject) must be.
He used a moving equatorial mount to correct for the earth's motion.
Parent
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I thought the same thing. This isn't a particularly impressive resolution for such a large subject. Check out the kind of detail we get of the earth [nasa.gov]: 21600 by 10800 pixels!
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I found even better ones [nasa.gov].. a staggering 26000x26000! I can't find an image viewer that displays them properly without crashing X.. even feh won't take it
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. This doesn't take anything away by the beauty of this project, but I think it's important to put sensational measurements such as "800 megapixels" in context.
If you want to put these measurements in context, you consider what is currently occurring in astrophotography, not the extreme resolution that can be achieved by photographing smaller subjects. The resolution is virtually irrelevent, the time taken and the measures with which to achieve it are far more crucial to this.
As you quite clearly have no knowledge of such a subject (referencing you point regarding moving, which is a trivial aspect for any astrophotographer using a tracking mount / autoguider,
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---
Astronomy Feed [feeddistiller.com] @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]
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Alternative Link [Astronomy picture of the Day] (Score:5, Informative)
This image was also he asronomy picture of the day for Sept 26th
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090926.html [nasa.gov]
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Yeah what a jackass. He spends 30 entire nights over 6 months doing photography (something that he appears to do as part of his profession) and then expects to maintain a little bit of creative control over his work? Pffft!
Sarcasm aside, grow up a bit. He's made the zoomable version available, and even aside from that 18MP is pretty darn good. It's a good quality image you are working with, and you could do quite a bit with it. I've made 40" long prints from 6.7MP images and they end up looking very good. Y
Oh my God. . . (Score:2, Funny)
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Its been nice knowing you....
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He was back in 2010. Thats one year away.
Amateur (Score:4, Funny)
ThankYouThankYouThankYou (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people who live in cities never get to see even a fraction of the night sky. Even thougb I live in rural Colorado where we can see the Milky Way fairly regularly, I want to thank you so much for sharing with everyone what we are missing out on, night after night. This is way better than TV.
Cheers.
Re:ThankYouThankYouThankYou (Score:4, Interesting)
I was recently at Yosemite during the Perseid meteor shower, and I got to really look at the Milky Way "scar" for the first time with my own eyes. My parents have a house in rural Texas, but the visibility was nowhere near what it was smack dab in the middle of a wide open Yosemite field at midnight.
Parent
Re:ThankYouThankYouThankYou (Score:5, Interesting)
I had my own telescope, but my pitiful attempts at seeing anything were thwarted by the vexatious cold and my own incompetence at astronomy [gdargaud.net].
Parent
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Most people who live in cities never get to see even a fraction of the night sky. Even thougb I live in rural Colorado where we can see the Milky Way fairly regularly, I want to thank you so much for sharing with everyone what we are missing out on, night after night. This is way better than TV. Cheers.
Those of us temporarily taking up abode in the Iraqi desert also don't get to see much of the stars. The sand/dust that is always in the air is worse than looking at the stars just a mile from downtown Seattle! The dust in Iraq is far worse than any light pollution I've ever encountered while living in Seattle.
Google Map! (Score:2)
Now I think it's about time for Google to include that. I am expecting it gives me an direction from Earth to a random star on M12 , with several mode of transport (Walk, Spaceship, Wormhole)
Streetview would be bonus.
Grammar fail (Score:2)
I know I'm a couple hours late to the party, but this is just sad...
My RSS reader shows changes in feeds. The original RSS summary for this article had "its" without the apostrophe -- correctly, as anyone with half a brain knows. The latest RSS feed, and the actual story page, show "it's". Hint: if you can't replace "it's" with "it is" in the sentence, it's (yes, really) wrong.
Oh, yeah, and this is a really cool photo and etc.
p
COPYRIGHT!! ARGH!! (Score:2)
IQ test (Score:2)
Which of these does not belong to the group?
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How do you fit a giraffe into a fridge?
Oblig quote... (Score:2)
Re:Slashdotted before the first comment? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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Yeah its called ShoopDaWhoop
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Go wide. And you'll have to go much faster than you think. Play around, but IIRC with no tracking you can only reasonably get about 20 seconds out of a 50 mm (35 mm camera) lens. Faster film gets you a deeper image but more grain of course. Most constellations fit nicely in the frame from a 50 mm lens.
Unfortunately, you won't get anything like this with film, at least not without an incredible amount of work and some really excellent tracking. Film rules for long exposures but digital is unbeatable for
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2) ~20 seconds. If you go very far beyond that, you'll end up with trails instead of nice clear shots. 30 seconds is passable, you'll just end up with tiny, tiny trails - probably not that noticeable unless you look closely. You may be able to stretch that out a bit more if you have near-superhuman vision, a geared tripod, and a steady hand, but I wouldn't count on it. That's
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You can't actually see the 800-megapixel image. You have to contact the photographer to get the full-resolution image
They have a couple of decent sized static images, some desktop sizes, and one that dynamically loads when you zoom in, ala google maps. I don't know if the last one goes to the full 800MP when you zoom.
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Because only criminals use torrents.
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You can't get it anywhere except the artist. I set him an email, and he sent a very prompt reply that it's for profesional use only, without actually knowing wether or not I was a professional.
I'm guessing that even though this project, GigaGalaxy Zoom, is done by the ESO, a intergovernmental organization, the image is just under license from the "artist" (in this case, "man with too much time for tedium"), so don't hold your breath about finding it anyway.