A few months in and the Astrobin Community Survey is making some progress, with about one eighth of the sky imaged. The aim is to eventually cover the entire sky with a good signal-to-noise ratio and a 10" pixel resolution.
Members of the survey team are collecting individual field images measuring approximately 6 x 10 degrees. Images are then plate-solved, registered, colour calibrated and gradient-corrected to allow them to be seamlessly stitched together into a whole-sky 5.3 gigapixel panorama. To date, approximately 140 fields have been collected with a total integration time in excess of 300 hours. A total of 1120 field images will be needed to complete the job.
The image shows a progress snapshot at one tenth of the final resolution (100" pixel size). A programatically generated skymap using the Mollweide equal-area projection is overlaid with the fields that have been imaged so far. Colour and gradient corrections haven't been applied at this stage.
We're always on the lookout for more contributors! If you have a wide-field setup (135 mm lens/scope with APS-C sensor or 200 mm lens/scope with full-frame sensor), access to a reasonably dark site (B4 or better) and are willing to contribute some observing time, please contact any of the team for more information. More details are also availalble at
Astrobin Community Survey - AstroBin.
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