European Southern Observatory

Astrophotographer, Stéphane Guisard, created this
image of the Milky Way using a simple digital
camera attached to a 10-centimeter telescope in
Atacama Desert, Chile. The starscape is an
assemblage of 1,200 images comprised of 52 fields
of view.

The sky portrait is part of the GigaGalaxy Zoom
project created by the European Southern
Observatory to celebrate the 400th anniversary of
Galileo's first viewing of the night sky through a
telescope. This is part of the International Year of
Astronomy.

For more info and images in regards to the project,
go to:
http://www.gigagalaxyzoom.org/G.html
or
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/slideshows/
milky-way.html
and
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/
47320/title/Stellar_panorama