Boston University astronomy department chairman James Jackson stared at the coffee mug on his desk.

“Eight years,” he said as his finger traced the blue image that wrapped around the cup. “There it is.”

Jackson is the head researcher on a BU team of astronomers that recently finished the Galactic Ring Survey, an eight-year project focused on the large gas clouds in the Milky Way where stars are “born.” The GRS resulted in the most complete picture of these clouds seen by astronomers, an image embossed on the mug that sits in front of Jackson.

“We have the best picture ever,” he said. “What we can say now is that we understand better what these clouds are and how they’re formed.”

The lack of an outside perspective made observation difficult, Jackson said.

“We don’t know the shape of our galaxy that well even though we live in it, because we live in it,” he said.

College of Arts and Sciences student research associate Jill Rathborne, who worked on the project for three years, said the best part of finishing was seeing the completed product.

“It was nice to have something that we could put on a coffee mug and have it look nice,” she said. “It’s something to show Mom and Dad. ‘Here, this is what I’ve been doing for eight years.'”

Because BU’s observatory is not research grade, Jackson and his team used a 45-foot-wide radio telescope at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Researchers used the internet to control the telescope’s movement so they would not have to commute to the western Massachusetts campus.

The team, comprised of three faculty members from BU, one from UMass, three post-doctorate students, four graduate students and ten undergraduate students, had to adjust their schedules to the rising and setting of their sources.

“Most of what we did was the observation part, which wasn’t awesome all the time,” third-year graduate student and GRS team member Ed Chambers said. “It mostly meant being up early in the morning. It’s definitely not the most glamorous job.”

The telescope received different radio wave frequencies that were translated into color.

“We can actually now pinpoint quite well where the stars are going to form and learn more about where we live,” Rathborne said.

Now that the observation is over, Jackson and his remaining team are focused on analyzing the information. The data from the GRS were published in the March issue of the Astrophysical Journal Supplement and on the internet for other astronomers to use. Several BU astronomers have already begun using the data for other projects.

Sixth-year graduate student Alexis Johnson, who worked on the GRS for approximately four years, is using the data to analyze the clouds statistically while being advised by Jackson.

“You would think that star formation, which is very violent, would stir things up and disrupt the structure,” Johnson said.

But Johnson has found that the clouds where stars are formed all have the same internal structure.

“It seems to be that nature is making these clouds in a systematic way,” Jackson said.

Jackson said this phenomenon is probably explained by cosmic turbulence.

Jackson is preparing to release a catalogue of the clouds and to follow up on the baby stars he observed by traveling around the world and looking at them through different telescopes. He plans to someday map the Milky Way.

Jackson said once the Milky Way is mapped, he will probably put it on a coffee mug. Probably.