Observing the Milky Way

[Size9Hex]

Cygnus and the southern end of Cepheus are just starting to appear over the rooftops by midnight. Vega is up there too and the full Summer Triangle can't be far behind. Won't be long before the star clouds of the central Milky Way are reaching up in the south (and probably already are for early risers!).

One of my observing highlights last year was the naked eye and bino Milky Way under mag 6 skies. Very excited to see it return - so much that I've picked up some lower power binos in anticipation - and to spend some time studying and enjoying it.

Has anyone else made any efforts to observe the Milky Way as if it were any other prized target that we so carefully study? Are there any tips to share? Any good resources to look at? Any areas you particularly enjoyed or details that you found particularly amazing? Any good Milky Way don't-miss lists or tick lists?

I'll start things off with a neat reference I found: https://www.handprint.com/ASTRO/galaxy.html

So many areas I want to see again, but particularly Cygnus of course (loads of structure east of Deneb, plus the dark nebulae around the swan's neck) and the whole Scutum-Sagittarius region - so much visible its hard to fathom, even though its low in the sky! I'm going to take a look through the Astro League Dark Nebulae program too.

[Pondus]

Interesting read and also a bit sad really. Seasons end here. It will not get proper dark until end of August. 'my' skies turn into mag 2, or worse, skies With just a few

visible naked eye stars.

But even still : Those Bright summer Nights is kind of an astronomical event on its own...

 

Rune

[Stu]

I don't have a sophisticated answer for you, just that generally my best views of the Milky Way are later each summer, say end of July or early August when I go camping in either Dorset or Devon.

My skies at or near home at mag 4.5 or best mag 5 are not good enough to show me the Milky Way, but the mag 5.5 or a little better I get whilst camping are good enough.

I find sky transparency varies a lot, and makes a big difference to the MW visibility.  On the best nights my favourite views are of the Cygnus rift and surrounding areas which are generally high overhead at that time of year. The structure visible is amazing, and I'm very much looking forward to using my Kasai 2.3x40 wideview binos to scan the whole area. I also have adaptors so I can fit UHC and OIII filters to perhaps see the Veil and North America Nebula too, two of my favourite objects.

[Size9Hex]

1 hour ago, Pondus said:

Interesting read and also a bit sad really. Seasons end here. It will not get proper dark until end of August. 'my' skies turn into mag 2, or worse, skies With just a few

visible naked eye stars.

But even still : Those Bright summer Nights is kind of an astronomical event on its own...

 

Rune

Sorry to hear that Rune. I guess long summer nights can be enjoyed for other reasons despite the lack of astronomy. An excuse to invest in some solar kit perhaps! It's not so bad down this way, although a month either side of the equinox we don't quite get full astro darkness. Even so, it still seems pretty dark if you're prepared to stay out until 1am, but I can't survive many such sessions back to back though!

[Size9Hex]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

I don't have a sophisticated answer for you, just that generally my best views of the Milky Way are later each summer, say end of July or early August when I go camping in either Dorset or Devon.

My skies at or near home at mag 4.5 or best mag 5 are not good enough to show me the Milky Way, but the mag 5.5 or a little better I get whilst camping are good enough.

I find sky transparency varies a lot, and makes a big difference to the MW visibility.  On the best nights my favourite views are of the Cygnus rift and surrounding areas which are generally high overhead at that time of year. The structure visible is amazing, and I'm very much looking forward to using my Kasai 2.3x40 wideview binos to scan the whole area. I also have adaptors so I can fit UHC and OIII filters to perhaps see the Veil and North America Nebula too, two of my favourite objects.

With your talk of the Veil and NAN, I can almost taste the summer! Memories of frozen toes and finger tips are fading fast! 

Hope you get some good use with those binos. They sound just the ticket! I wonder what else you'd find up there with with a UHC at those low powers. So much of the area around Cygnus seems to glow red in the images, but not sure how it comes across (if at all) visually.

Good point on the transparency. I've had some great views from a mag 6.2ish site with loads of chewy details, but a few nights later quite disappointing even though it still seemed really dark. From home, mag 5.5 at zenith but worse in the south, even the Cygnus region is faint. I'm lucky to have such skies I guess, but I wish it wasn't so washed out in the south. The rift is stunning, but really starts to fade as I follow it down into Aquila. A trip to the south coast may be in order!

[Stu]

2 minutes ago, Size9Hex said:

Good point on the transparency. I've had some great views from a mag 6.2ish site with loads of chewy details, but a few nights later quite disappointing even though it still seemed really dark.

I've had occasions where the NAN has been invisible one night and visible the next, with both nights seemingly similar darkness. The only explanation is poorer transparency.

At the recent DIYPSP, the skies were around 20.5 on the SQM-L if I remember correctly, but not a sniff of the MW, the skies looked quite milky all weekend really, but at least they were clear!

Do realize how lucky you are with your skies! Most of us struggle with far worse  

[Size9Hex]

10 hours ago, Stu said:

I've had occasions where the NAN has been invisible one night and visible the next, with both nights seemingly similar darkness. The only explanation is poorer transparency.

At the recent DIYPSP, the skies were around 20.5 on the SQM-L if I remember correctly, but not a sniff of the MW, the skies looked quite milky all weekend really, but at least they were clear!

Do realize how lucky you are with your skies! Most of us struggle with far worse  

Yeah, I think I'm beginning to realise. It's easy to compare the skies against better skies elsewhere, but around here we do have a good combination of reasonable darkness and clear weather. In terms of the darkness the one thing I'd add is that even a couple of miles from home, it gets an extra half a magnitude worth of darkness which is makes a massive difference. Always worth seeking out those relatively dark locations within ones local area!

[scarp15]

On 4/24/2017 at 20:16, Size9Hex said:

Cygnus and the southern end of Cepheus are just starting to appear over the rooftops by midnight. Vega is up there too and the full Summer Triangle can't be far behind. Won't be long before the star clouds of the central Milky Way are reaching up in the south (and probably already are for early risers!).

 

Thanks for the notice and bringing this to our attention Paul, I cannot wait.

Here is an excellent interactive resource for exploring and understanding more about the Milky Way.

http://media.skysurvey.org/interactive360/index.html

This is more about the website

http://www.skysurvey.org/survey/

[Size9Hex]

Thanks Iain! I'm without Flash, so can't view it but have done some further googling, finding a couple of non-Flash static versions and it looks absolutely stunning. By coincidence, I'm using a version of it (not sure if it's the full resolution version) in Sky Guide on iOS, but until now had no idea what it was. I almost completely stopped using Sky Guide when I got Sky Safari... but I kept hold of it because I seem to come back to it for one purpose - every time I'm trying to make sense of what I see in the Milky Way! The image really does show the beauty, complexity and general awesomeness of our biggest DSO. 

[Davesellars]

Great thread!  I'm definitely going to have a session this year observing the Milky Way from a rural site.  My usual site I can see the MW no problem (mag 5 direct vision - sometimes to mag 5.3 on a particularly good night) although really I have to wait until after midnight when lights have gone off in various places which makes a big difference then on a really nice transparent night I can see some structure.  I'm hoping that the rural site will get closer to mag 6 with not having any local LP at all so will be a big improvement

I think I'd just take my 15x70 binoculars and make a note of the structures and particular dark nebulae to view all the way from Cygnus down to Sagittarius.

[clarkpm4242]

Yeah! The Milky Way is my favourite 'object'.

Naked eye or through my TMB 92mm f5.5 refractor (FOV ~ 5 degrees with a 31 Nagler, UHC filter as required).

As mentioned, transparent dark skies a must.  Late summer through to December.

Many of you have alluded to a key 'message', that is to observe the dark nebulae.  Straining to fully pick out the dust really brings out the brightness in the rest of our galaxy

Only 4 months to wait...

[Size9Hex]

10 hours ago, Davesellars said:

Great thread!  I'm definitely going to have a session this year observing the Milky Way from a rural site.  My usual site I can see the MW no problem (mag 5 direct vision - sometimes to mag 5.3 on a particularly good night) although really I have to wait until after midnight when lights have gone off in various places which makes a big difference then on a really nice transparent night I can see some structure.  I'm hoping that the rural site will get closer to mag 6 with not having any local LP at all so will be a big improvement

I think I'd just take my 15x70 binoculars and make a note of the structures and particular dark nebulae to view all the way from Cygnus down to Sagittarius.

Fingers crossed that the rural site works out. If you do get to mag 6, I think you'll notice a massive difference. I can see the Mlky Way at mag 5.5 as a band across the sky but the structure starts to pop in at the mag 6 site. Half a mag doesn't sound much but the diffference is very noticeable. Looking forwards to swapping notes when the time comes. I'll be going a bit lower power with a fairly wide 7x35 pair.

[Size9Hex]

3 hours ago, clarkpm4242 said:

Yeah! The Milky Way is my favourite 'object'.

Naked eye or through my TMB 92mm f5.5 refractor (FOV ~ 5 degrees with a 31 Nagler, UHC filter as required).

As mentioned, transparent dark skies a must.  Late summer through to December.

Many of you have alluded to a key 'message', that is to observe the dark nebulae.  Straining to fully pick out the dust really brings out the brightness in the rest of our galaxy

Only 4 months to wait...

Mine too! 

I spent a fair bit of time at the eyepiece last year searching for those elusive details in distant galaxies and not appreciating the great big and richly detailed one right in front of me! I'm going to try sketching it this year to help draw out those dusty details.

I'm hoping to get a first glimpse a bit earlier here, maybe even before midsummer. It's not quite far enough south here for year round proper astro darkness, but it's not too far off. Even so, the far southern region was a juggling act last year between catching it at a reasonable altitude vs. catching it when it was actually dark enough.

[scarp15]

On ‎27‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 22:17, Size9Hex said:

Mine too! 

I spent a fair bit of time at the eyepiece last year searching for those elusive details in distant galaxies and not appreciating the great big and richly detailed one right in front of me! I'm going to try sketching it this year to help draw out those dusty details.

I'm hoping to get a first glimpse a bit earlier here, maybe even before midsummer. It's not quite far enough south here for year round proper astro darkness, but it's not too far off. Even so, the far southern region was a juggling act last year between catching it at a reasonable altitude vs. catching it when it was actually dark enough.

I was actually thinking on the same lines and that it would be interesting to sketch particular perspectives upon the field of view of a rich field scope or binoculars. This could become an interesting quest for later in the year.

[jetstream]

I just came in from a very transparent sky and was watching Cygnus and Lyra rise. I first looked over into the area from my other obs spot and though Oh No...there is some white cloud on the horizon... but the horizon was extremely "full of stars" to say the least.

As soon as I saw Cygnus I knew that the "cloud" was the Milky Way...the amazing thing is at this low elevation there was a tremendously stark difference between the edge of the MW and the blackness... over that top edge the sky changed to black and diamond. I just had to take a peak at the NAN unfiltered down there,and there it was, plain as day. Obviously no where near its zenith presentation but easy to see in my newly blackened 200mm f3.8. Not bad for a hair above the horizon.

And Yes, I got lost in the sea of stars again laying back in my lawn chair.

[scarp15]

Very vivid description Gerry, I can imagine that 'cloud' and to have captured the North America Nebula so early too.

A good starting point would be Barnard's 'E' (Barnard 142 & 143) in Aquila which can be located by drifting across from Altair. 

Here are a couple of features

http://www.allthesky.com/nebulae/barnard143.html

http://www.perezmedia.net/beltofvenus/archives/001379.html

There is a very interesting book, Richard Wilds Bright and Dark Nebula, which will available from July, through Waterstones and Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bright-Dark-Nebulae-Pocket-Astronomers/dp/3319328131/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493460796&sr=1-1&keywords=Richard+Wildes+Bright+and+Dark+Nebulae 

https://www.waterstones.com/book/bright-and-dark-nebulae-2017/richard-wilds/9783319328133

It is really enjoyable to take along binoculars, wide field refractor, 8 - 10" dobsonian to indulge in a late Summer dark sky along with an adjustable observers or camping chair.

 

[Size9Hex]

Thanks @scarp15. Barnard's E has gone onto the list now and that book definitely merits a look.

@jetstream I'm rather envious of your skies! Can't yet see the Milky Way from home when it's this low in the sky, although there's a whiff of it on the horizon when I'm out in the countryside. Your post brings to mind the (apocryphal?) stories of city dwellers on the west coast of the US calling 911 during a black out when they saw eerie silver clouds in the night sky!

[timwetherell]

It's clearly visible on Exmoor, but unfortunately the Northern hemisphere doesn't face as bright a section of our galaxy as the southern hemisphere does.  It was truly amazing in rural Australia, so bright that it was easily visible even with a 1/4 moon!