Dear all,

I've created a face-on map of our region of the Milky Way galaxy - within 10 thousand parsecs of the Sun, or over thirty thousand light years. (That is, what our galaxy would look like if you were outside it, looking down on the disk - but based only on distance estimates found in the scientific literature. )

It's a big map, with 7831 objects on it and more to come.

You can get an overview of the project here:

http://galaxymap.org

Some more detailed links:

The beginnings of an online book about the project:

http://galaxymap.org/drupal/?q=node/1

The full zoomable, pannable map:

http://galaxymap.org/cgi-bin/display.py?s=1_p0.0xp0.0

A 1280x1024 overview map with the main objects:

http://galaxymap.org/perturbed1280x1024.png

A picture gallery with the current images:

http://galaxymap.org/cgi-bin/gallery.py

I could really use some help with this project - you can find out how
you can help here:

http://galaxymap.org/drupal/?q=node/13

Please tell me what you think!

Cheers,
Kevin Jardine