Incredible Astrophoto: Deep and Wide View of the Milky Way

This new panorama of the Milky Way by astrophotographer Miguel Claro is really amazing, and you definitely want to click on the image to have access to larger versions! This is an 18-image mosaic taken with a Canon 60Da, with 60 second exposures, and it rivals wide-field images taken by larger ground-based telescopes. The images, were, however, taken from the home of some of the darkest skies and largest telescopes in the world, near Roque de Los Muchahos, in La Palma, Canary Islands. Visible is the hazy band of white light that comes from unresolved stars and other material that lie within the galactic plane, contrasting with interesting shapes within the dark regions of the band, corresponding to areas where light from distant stars is blocked by interstellar dust.

Above is an annotated version of Claro’s panorama, and below is one without annotations. Claro provides a detailed description at his website, and also has a beautiful gallery of images from his visit to La Palma which includes pictures of many of the telescopes at night, backdropped by star fields and the night sky.

Thanks to Miguel Claro for sharing his images with Universe Today!

Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.