Night sky from eye to telescope: Milky Way panaroma at 800 mega-pixel [swf]

Really cool, but why is the progress indicator right in the middle of the display!?

This image of the sky is really a mosaic consisted of about 300 photographed fields each four times, what represents right by 1200 photos there. All were taken with a digital case Nikon D3 and its objective of 50 mm of focal diaphragmé in 5,6.

Every image was exposed for 6 minutes, the visible movement of the sky, due to the rotation of the Earth, being corrected by a small equatorial frame, the axis of rotation of which, turning in 24 hours, in the inverse direction of the movement of the Earth, was strictly aligned on the axis of rotation of our planet.

http://sergebrunier.com/gallerie/pleinciel/

Does any one have any idea why there would be 14 "rays" coming off each of the bigger stars?

Also, Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope is one of the best "Google Earth for outer space" things I've seen. http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/

This has taught me that if I want to show 800 million pixels then I need a CDN.

I get a permission error when I click the link.

* ESO GigaGalaxy Zoom http://www.gigagalaxyzoom.org/about.html

* NASA Astronomy Picture of the day http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090926.html

i want to see well known constellations highlighted!

maybe I'm just spoiled by Google SkyMap http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/planetarium-in-your-p...

What about zooming in?