Fancy a quick look around the Milky Way?

[Stu Skywatcher]

Spotted this on the BBC web site and thought I'd share, only a billion stars

BBC News - Picture captures a billion stars

[Azure]

Amazing stuff!

- AZ

[Pappy Nick]

I think my grandson was about six years old when he came out with a classic line - "God makes great stuff out of Plasticine".

We all thought it was hilarious at the time but I'd have to agree with him now

[sulaco]

It's a fantastic image, you could study it for ages.

[SwampStar]

It's now crashed...

T'internet is broked.

[661-pete]

I haven't managed to get on the site yet (took too long to load and timed out), but that sounds pretty impressive.

Or does it?

I reckon, lots of folks on this very forum, with their, say, 10" plus apertures and a CCD, can easily image down to magnitude 18. In fact I can just about reach 18 with my DSLR, taking, say, 20x3min subs. And my kit is far from top-notch.

Now, down to mag.18, there are about 230 million stars visible in the entire night sky (N and S hemispheres). Not far short of the magic 'billion'. So perhaps these billion stars are within reach of a lot of amateurs.

It's just a fact, there are an awful lot of stars out there!

It's putting them all together in a zoomable composite (when we can get back onto that site) that's the magical thing. I can well understand, this may well be a 'first'.