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An amateur captures the whole universe in a photo

A resident of Seattle, Washington, created a gigantic photograph of the sky visible at night, says Komo News.

Nick Risinger, his first experience in astrophotography, has traveled more than 60.000 miles (nearly 100.000 kilometers) in the western United States and Mexico. He took a total of 37.440 photos, creating a 5.000-megapixel photograph.

As we can read on its website, SkySurvey:

“Large in size and extent, [the photograph] represents a world far beyond that which lies beneath our feet, and reveals our Milky Way so familiar with rare clarity. When we observe the image, we are in fact observing the past, because the light that reaches us - after having crossed such distances - precedes civilization itself. ”

The year-long project started in March 2010, reports Wired magazine. "The genesis was the desire to educate people, to illuminate the hidden beauty that surrounds us," Risinger told the magazine. He and his brother borrowed six high-quality cameras to photograph the Nevada desert sky. Each night from June 2010, Nick Risinger and his retired father set up the six cameras on their tripods, taking 20 to 70 photos, according to Wired.

The challenge was daunting, as he says himself:

"As anyone who has ever tried to photograph the night sky will tell you, the stars are a formidable challenge. They move, and their light is very weak, which means taking long exposures and having a rotating and automated camera stand. ”

His project follows previous professional attempts to capture a global view of the sky, including the Digitized sky survey of the 1980s, whose images are used for example on Google Sky. The novelty of his project is the addition of a third (...) Read more on Slate.fr