Interactive 360 degree Milky Way

Milky Way on La Palma Island Milky Way Spherical Image by Project Nightflight

This interactive full-sphere image from Project Nightflight shows the summer Milky Way stretching across the whole sky on June 14, 2016, from a truly dark observing site, on La Palma in Spain’s Canary Islands. Click and check it out!

Our friends at Project Nightflight described the image:

The bright galactic center hovers above the pitch black volcanic landscape of La Palma island. The full band of the Milky Way is clearly visible as it crosses the zenith. Where the sky above the horizon isn’t illuminated by the faint orange glow of Los Llanos the Aridane it sparkles with iridescent green airglow. The flashlight of a passing nighttime stargazer left a red trail on our nightscape image.

For all you astrophotographers, here’s some techie info from project nightflight:

The Theta S camera sat on an AstroTrac TT-320X AG tracking platform and was remote controlled via WiFi over a mobile device. We shot 50 individual exposures of 60 seconds at ISO 800 which we digitally combined later to obtain the colorful and noise-free result.

For those interested in how to use the Ricoh Theta S full-sphere camera for astrophotography, there’s information here.

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Bottom line: Interactive image of the Milky Way taken on the island of La Palma.

See more from Project Nightflight