A Color All-Sky Panorama Image of the Milky Way

TL;DR

This paper presents a high-resolution, all-sky panoramic image of the Milky Way created using a low-cost system, calibrated and processed to remove light pollution, serving as an educational resource for planetarium displays.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for assembling a detailed all-sky mosaic using portable equipment and sky background data to correct for light pollution effects.

Findings

Produced a 648 Megapixel all-sky image of the Milky Way.

Successfully calibrated and processed images to remove artificial light effects.

Demonstrated the image's utility for educational and planetarium applications.

Abstract

This article describes the assembly of an optical (RGB) all-sky mosaic image with an image scale of 36 arcsec/pixel, a limiting magnitude of approx. 14 mag and an 18 bit dynamic range. Using a portable low-cost system, 70 fields (each covering 40 deg x 27 deg) were imaged over a time span of 21 months from dark-sky locations in South Africa, Texas and Michigan. The fields were photometrically calibrated against standard catalog stars. Using sky background data from the Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes, gradients resulting from artificial light pollution, airglow and zodiacal light were eliminated, while the large-scale galactic and extragalactic background resulting from unresolved sources was preserved. The 648 Megapixel image is a valuable educational tool, being able to fully utilize the resolution and dynamic range of modern full-dome planetarium projection systems.