Panoramic Milkyway

3,000 Images Combine for Stunning Milky Way Portrait
By SPACE.com staff

A new panoramic image of the full night sky — with the Milky Way as its centerpiece — has been made by piecing together 3,000 individual photographs.

The panorama's creator, Axel Mellinger of Central Michigan University, spent 22 months and traveled over 26,000 miles to take digital photographs at dark sky locations in South Africa, Texas and Michigan.

"This panorama image shows stars 1,000 times fainter than the human eye can see, as well as hundreds of galaxies, star clusters and nebulae," Mellinger said.

Read more at the source

The photographer's site provides a higher resolution version here.