Posted 07.16.2010 at 1:11 pm
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Terapixel Night Sky
Microsoft's Terapixel project, part of Microsoft Research, stitched together more than 1,700 pairs of photographic plates from two powerful telescopes to create the clearest, largest night sky map yet.
Microsoft
First they gave us a high-res tour of Mars -- now Microsoft has made the largest and clearest night-sky map ever. It's a terapixel image: 1,000 000,000,000 pixels.
The software giant’s Terapixel project stitched together 1,791 pairs of red-light and blue-light plates from telescopes in California and Australia. The result is the map above, which covers the night sky of the northern and southern hemispheres.
Using WorldWide Telescope and Bing maps, you can zoom in on the cosmos, peering through the dust of the Milky Way to distant galaxies. Microsoft announced Terapixel July 13 at its annual Research Faculty Summit.
To view every pixel of the image, you'd need a half-million high-definition televisions. If you tried to print it, the document would extend the length of a football field, Microsoft says.
The project required re-computing all the image data collected by the Digitized Sky Survey during the past 50 years. The images, produced by the Palomar telescope in California and the Schmidt telescope in Australia, each cover an area of the cosmos six and a half degrees square.
The map’s quality and clarity stems from computerized changes to the original images, which have varying levels of brightness, color saturation, noise and vignetting, which is darkening of the corners.
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Technology, Rebecca Boyle, astronomy, astrophotography, computers, COMPUTING, maps, microsoft, Telescopes, WorldWide TelescopeTerapixel then used an image optimization program to create a seamless, spherical panorama of the sky. That took about four hours, according to Microsoft.
The final image is 802 GB.
[Microsoft Research via HPCWire]
Night Sky Before and After: A previous all-sky map, at left, and the new one at right. Microsoft
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Huh, seems like only yesterday that an 802 gig picture was impossible... oh well, time to buy another 3TB HD...
lmao Spotcat...so true!
@spotcat It's so true. At first I thought "My goodness I'll never be able to look at such an image at home" and then about half a second later I realized I have 2TB drives at home and that this isn't insane at all. So who wants to print it out first?
So... is it .bmp or .jpeg?
So... is it .bmp or .jpeg?
So... is it .bmp or .jpeg?
So... is it .bmp or .jpeg?
So... is it .bmp or .jpeg?
So... is it .bmp or .jpeg?
So... is it .bmp or .jpeg?
Havin' a problem buddy?
realy? comercial advertising on a free comment bored? is that illegal?
hey tritanium got one word... zanex bro zanex
anywho, this is some kewl stuff the guys at microsoft have been doing of late, i think they just like flexing there quantitative muscles along with there IQ's :)
so where's the download/torrent link? I upgraded to ext4 for a reason!
Thanks Microsoft! You have taken something as simple as walking outside at night and looking up and turned it into an 800 GB file.
Thanks Microsoft! You have taken something as simple as walking outside at night and looking up and turned it into an 800 GB file.
@johncarync - But, that is what they DO!! Remember when Win95 used to install to 400MB on your hard drive? Windows 7 x64 takes up 26GB! That"s what I call progress! ;-))
The should take this map and put it to music and play it at IMAX theaters.
@ Akpopscifan:
Not only in Imax, but in 3D as well. They could use the 3D to bring certain star formations to our attention, or to highlight whatever the (possible) narration is talking about. And think how long this movie would be.
@ Everyone posting ads:
These comments are supposed to be directed at reviewing or commenting on the article. Not something completely unrelated, such as clothing sales.
At first I thought "My goodness I'll never be able to look at such an image at home" and then about half a second later I realized I have 2TB drives at home and that this isn't insane at all. So who wants to print it out first?
http://www.cirurgia-plastica.com/fimose/