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Milkyway - where is it ?


AlistairW

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Hello,

Confession, I am an imager, but still love using eyeballs to look around the sky whilst imaging. I have been looking for dark sites, and I have found quite a few candidates. I live in the foothills of the Mendips Hills (Somerset) which is an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. I was surprised, even when in the heart of the hills, that there was still some light pollution form the big towns, which were probably 15 miles away as the crow flies. Moon was something like 32% last night, and appeared quite bright, but I could, for example, see all the main stars of Ursa Minor. But no sign of the Milkyway even at the Zenith. Is it simply the wrong time of year to see it, or was the moon washing it out ? - I was sure the conditions were at least sufficient to see at least some sign. Bit why was I struggling ?

Thanks

Alistair

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The milky way is all around us :) as we are within one of its arms. 

But you are right. Yes, its the wrong time of year to see it. The milky way, as you suggest, is a summer time observation. So, give it a few months and it will be out in all its glory :)

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It should still be visible under good conditions, but definitely in August and September its a lovely sight overhead and and remains overhead through into Feb. Looking at SkySafari, Decemember is best, straight overhead. My favourite time though is August, warm nights lying outside looking up at Cygnus right overhead. Lovely stuff.

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You need to go a long way from towns to find a really dark site (IDA reckon 80-100 miles!), plus having the moon around won't help much. At this time year looking South East in the pre dawn sky is a good bet. In fact it offers one of the better optertunities of the year to see Scorpius & Sagitarius which are often lost in the summer twilight here in the UK.

Here is the pre dawn Milky Way I pictured last year in early April about 4:00am from Mid Wales.

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Not "overhead" but high enough. Starts in th South goes up then hits the horizon in the North, gets to 50 degrees up.

Look just above Sirius, it then goes up above Betelguese, Orion is not in the Milky Way it lies a bit outside it. Then it passes through Auriga, Perseus and Cassiopeia then down into Cygnus.

Will say that if you gt a dark location you will not see many of the constellations that we use to navigate around by. Gets a bit weird at first.

Usually it is just a very faint something that you can make out in our towns etc. But it is generally "visible" as you can tell there is something there. Probably Cassiopeia and Perseus are the easy 2 to work out where it is. Then look for Taurus and it passes through the horns,

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Best to know where to look and then get to a dark site when the moon is not about. It also goes through Cepheus (a constellation townies don't know very well) on its way down through Cygnus. Cygnus and the great dark rift through the middle are good, one for the autumn when you get the Milky Way up all night Sagittarius to Canis Major... and everywhere in between!

 

peterW

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6 hours ago, laser_jock99 said:

At this time year looking South East in the pre dawn sky is a good bet. In fact it offers one of the better optertunities of the year to see Scorpius & Sagitarius which are often lost in the summer twilight here in the UK.

Excellent point, on Friday morning while observing the latest comet Lovejoy I also scanned the southern sky and the fuzzies were literally jumping out at me in a still dark sky. Much more striking than June/July.

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9 hours ago, ronin said:

Not "overhead" but high enough. Starts in th South goes up then hits the horizon in the North, gets to 50 degrees up.

Look just above Sirius, it then goes up above Betelguese, Orion is not in the Milky Way it lies a bit outside it. Then it passes through Auriga, Perseus and Cassiopeia then down into Cygnus.

Will say that if you gt a dark location you will not see many of the constellations that we use to navigate around by. Gets a bit weird at first.

Usually it is just a very faint something that you can make out in our towns etc. But it is generally "visible" as you can tell there is something there. Probably Cassiopeia and Perseus are the easy 2 to work out where it is. Then look for Taurus and it passes through the horns,

I find the 'Winter' Milky Way an altogther different beast to the dense star clouds of the 'Summer' Milky Way. Essentially we are looking away from the galactic centre and into the outer arms and ther whole show is fainter. Around Orion and Canis Major, what with all the light pollution in the UK combined with low altitude it's quite difficult to trace I find- even from my dark sky site.

The best I've managed is to photograph it in the blue channel to cut through the haze. The Orion Arm of the Galaxy can be seen well to the left of Orion and Sirius. If you get good visuals of this, you have a nice dark sky indeed!

Blue3.jpg

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That much moon won't help, regardless if light pollution.

I very rarely see skies at home where the milky way is at all visible. It's usually on holidays away from cities and big towns that the chance arises.

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16 hours ago, laser_jock99 said:

I find the 'Winter' Milky Way an altogther different beast to the dense star clouds of the 'Summer' Milky Way. Essentially we are looking away from the galactic centre and into the outer arms and ther whole show is fainter. Around Orion and Canis Major, what with all the light pollution in the UK combined with low altitude it's quite difficult to trace I find- even from my dark sky site.

The best I've managed is to photograph it in the blue channel to cut through the haze. The Orion Arm of the Galaxy can be seen well to the left of Orion and Sirius. If you get good visuals of this, you have a nice dark sky indeed!

Blue3.jpg

Very good point! Hadn't thought of it quite like that but yes, the summer Milky Way is so much richer. I love the whole Cygnus region.

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