Thursday Salute to Originals: Celestial Mosaic
Thousands of hours of time captures portray the galaxy in incredible detail.
With 1,250 hours of exposure time, Finnish photographer J-P Metsavainio has created an enormous graphic that perfectly depicts the Milky Way Galaxy. Spanning from the Taurus to Cygnus constellations, the flat mosaic covers 125 degrees of the Earth’s projected sphere.
The final graphic is stitched from 234 individual images. The 1.7-gigapixel file includes nearly 20 million visible stars.
“As a visual artist, the composition of the image means a lot. During the years, I have shot hundreds of individual targets from the Milky Way. Each image taken is an independent artwork. At the same time, I always kept in my mind the needs of the final large composition,” said Metsavainio in an interview with This is Colossal.
That commitment to perfection is translated to the tenacity to complete a nearly 12-year project.
This Thursday, we’re saluting J-P Metsavainio and his celestial mosaic. You can learn more about the process and incredible story behind this big project on the photographer’s website.
Sources: J-P Metsavainio, This is Colossal