Piecing together 3000 individual photographs has made a new panoramic image of the Milky Way. Dr. Axel Mellinger, Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Physics at Central Michigan University, spent 22 months and traveled over 26 000 miles to take digital photographs at dark sky locations in South Africa, Texas and Michigan from 2007-2009.

The panorama image shows stars 1000 times fainter than the human eye can see, as well as hundreds of galaxies, star clusters and nebulae.

It is the second panoramic of the Milky Way Dr. Mellinger has produced in the last 10 years. Between 1997-2000 he used only 51 images on a film camera to capture the Milky Way.

Used in observatories and schools around the world, Dr. Mellinger is hoping the new image will have equal success.

Click on the image below to check out an incredible high resolution version!