If you have a DSLR camera with 15 or 16 megapixels, you might feel like you have the resolution to shoot just about anything. What you don’t have the resolution for is shooting truly epic shots of the nighttime sky. I’m not talking about pics of the trees and stars; I am talking about shooting photos up close and personal with deep space objects like stars and nebulae.
To do that, 30MP or even 50MP just isn’t enough resolution. The sensor needed for this sort of photography is the 268MP image sensor you see here that is designed for the OmegaCAM. This is a camera sensor that is used with a telescope on Earth to shoot photos at the European Southern Observatory.
The massive sensor is made up of 32 different CCD sensors and weighs in at 1700 pounds. I don’t even want to know how expensive it was. Check out the photos here to see just how gigantic the sensor actually is.
The image below was shot with the OmegaCAM, and at this resolution doesn’t do the original justice.
[via Petapixel]
