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Credit & Copyright: Knut Lundmark
(Copyright: Lund Observatory)
Explanation:
This panorama
view of the sky
is really a drawing.
It was made in the 1950s under the supervision
of astronomer Knut Lundmark at the
Lund Observatory in Sweden.
To create the picture, draftsmen used
a mathematical distortion to map
the entire sky onto an oval shaped image with
the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy
along the center and the north galactic
pole at the top.
7,000 individual stars are shown as white dots, size
indicating brightness.
The "Milky Way" clouds, actually the combined
light of dim, unresolved stars in the
densely populated galactic plane, are
accurately painted on, interrupted by
dramatic dark dust lanes.
The overall effect is photographic in quality and represents the visible
sky.
Can you identify any familiar
landmarks or constellations?
For starters,
Orion
is at the right edge of the picture, just below the galactic plane
and the Large and
Small Magellanic Clouds are visible as
fuzzy patches in the lower right quadrant.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Milky Way
Publications with words: Milky Way
See also:
- APOD: 2023 December 12 Á Aurora and Milky Way over Norway
- Milky Way Rising
- APOD: 2023 July 18 Á Milky Way above La Palma Observatory
- APOD: 2023 July 16 Á Meteor and Milky Way over the Alps
- APOD: 2023 July 2 Á Milky Way and Aurora over Antarctica
- APOD: 2023 June 20 Á The Nandu in the Milky Way
- APOD: 2023 May 29 Á Milky Way over a Turquoise Wonderland