400,000 Images Used To Create Simulated 3D Fly Through Of Our Galaxy

Our galaxy is enormous and a video created from over 400,000 images does a rather awe-inspiring job at confirming this fact.

The 8-minute video was captured by a chap with the username daveachuk and it takes us on a journey through our galaxy in 3D. The video may look computer generated but it's not; it contains images captured at different Infrared bands by the Spitzer Space Telescope over the course of about 6 years.

"A combination of custom image processing scripts and off-the-shelf software that supports scripting were used," said daveachuk to the Reddit community. The final animation was created in After Effects and the final render time for the 4k 60p file took 4 days and that's on a top-end computer, too. 

In total, the image processing and manipulation took around 5 months to complete and you can find a more detailed, technical explanation on the process over on Reddit. 

If you want to explore astrophotography a little further, how about looking at a rather cool lunar shot with the ISS over it? Or, lunar images captured by an amateur astrophotographer from his own home? 

(Via Reddit)