This image shows the Milky Way as seen from the solar system. The shaded regions are those scanned by the Skylab experiment Galactic X-Ray Mapping (S150). The galactic center is approximately at the center of the map. The three overlapping rectangles illustrate the fields of view of the three collimators in one instant of time. The Marshall Space Flight Center had program responsibility for the development of Skylab hardware and experiments.

This photograph shows Skylab's Galactic X-Ray Mapping facility (S150), an astrophysics and space sciences investigation. An objective of this experiment was to extend the search for the origin of galactic x-rays beyond the sensitivity possible with short flights of small research rockets. This was accomplished by placing a large-area, soft x-ray detector in orbit to collect data for a much longer time. The S150 instrument was not in Skylab but in the instrument unit of the second stage of the Skylab-3 Saturn IB rocket.