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Behold: The Most Detailed Catalogue of the Visible Milky Way Ever

Astronomers map 219 million stars over a ten year period. Whoa.
A longer wavelength subset of the catalogue. Image: Hywel Farnhill, University of Hertfordshire

The most detailed map yet made of the visible Milky Way was released today, capturing a whopping 219 million stars in our galaxy. The catalogue was assembled based on a full decade of observations collected by the Isaac Newton Telescope. The image below is a small subsection of the full map.

A view of the catalogue with galactic coordinate information. Click to enlarge. Image: Hywel Farnhill, University of Hertfordshire

The Y-axis charts galactic latitude and the X-axis charts galactic longitude, both of which orient Earth in relation to the center of the Milky Way. This particular image is limited to the longer broadband wavelengths represented in the map, which is why it is tinged red.

Focusing on longer wavelengths provides a clearer look at overall galactic structure, while zeroing in on shorter wavelengths—which appear more blue—highlights energetic, hyper-luminous regions, like developing nebulae.

The catalogue includes every star with a "faint limit" down to the 19th magnitude, meaning that stars that are about a million times too dim to be glimpsed with the naked eye are included in the map.

The project, led by Geert Barentson of the University of Hertfordshire, was published this morning in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.