Wide Swath

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a beautiful shot of three degrees (six times the width of the full Moon) of the sky towards the center of the Milky Way. Most astronomical instruments only cover a smaller portion of the sky, so a vista like this must be built up over many images. Producing stunning shots, such as this, is secondary for this instrument (Pan-STARRS), it is designed for "wide angle viewing" to hunt for potentially dangerous asteroids.