How do they take pictures of the Milkey Way ?

Question

There are pictures of the whole Milkey Way showing the Earth as a small dot. But there are no satellites out that far ?

Answer 1

The milky way is visible to us as an edge-on galaxy. The first real photo I saw of the whole milky way centered on the center of the galaxy was taken by an amateur astronomer that used a car's "moon" hub cap as a fish eye mirror. He tipped the hubcap so Sagittarius was centered in the reflection and took a 8 minute photo of the reflection. Pretty cool use of the tools at hand.

Answer 2

The Mily Way is a band of stars that cross the night sky. It is the edge on view of our own galaxy and can be seen with the naked eye on clear nights awy from city lights. It's easrier to photograph it in the Southern Hemisphere but it can be done in the N. Hemisphere. In fact the second website (forums) shows a digital photo of the Milky Way shot in the desert by an amatuer photographer

Try the websites below.

Book ;Splendors of the Universe : A Practical Gudie to Photographing the Night Sky (Hardcover)Terence Dickinson (Author), Jack Newton (Author)

Answer 3

There are none. The furthest manmade object from Earth is Voyager 1, at a little over 101 AU from Earth. All the pictures you see of the Milky Way are just artists' renditions and computer models.

Yes, the others are correct as well. I should have added that we do have a pretty good idea of "what is where" in our galaxy using radio signals and whatnot. However, the only way we can really physically "see" our galaxy is from our point of view. And actually, since we are located in one of the outer arms, we can look into the center of our galaxy.

Answer 4

Astronomers can only take pictures of the Milky Way from the Earth's point of view. They can measure the distances of stars from Earth and from each other, then they map them out and produce a picture of the Milky Way. If you have ever entered the outskirts of a big city, imagine looking toward the downtown area where the skyscrapers and lights are. Then look all around you at the rest of the city all around. You'll get an idea of what the city looks like from just one point of view!

Answer 5

There are panoramic pictures of the entire night sky. It can take years to take pictures of the entire sky but once it has been done those pictures can be stiched together to make one picture. Like this.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051004.html
It is a real picture. Or real pictures. all taken from earth. Nothing is computer generated. Just digitally processed. And sice we can photograph other galaxies like the Whale galaxy
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040123.html
and see that it looks alot like the Milky Way we can guess that the Milky Way is galaxy just like the others.

Answer 6

Any true picture of the Milkyway taken is from the edge-on view - it's the only way we're able to truly see it. I've seen computer-generated photos based on radio maps; when compared to the Andromeda galaxy, the Milkyway's arms are a little thinner, and more visible.

Answer 7

xjmox is correct. Never the less we have a map of the Milky Way as well as the Universe.
The mapping was accomplished by Radio astronomy. Photographs do not go beyond the resolution of the Hubble telescope.

Answer 8

thats a great question . so its actually speculation that the milky way is a spiral galaxy?