Interesting video showing southern hemisphere viewpoint

[greglloyd]

Check out this video. Note Orion rising on the left side of the video and how high it goes into the sky (initially on it's side and then going vertical as it heads towards the zenith). Imagine what the Orion Nebula must look like with Orion so high in the sky! Also note the large and small Magellanic Clouds to the center right. I suspect the southern sky can be awesome with many showcase DSO's reaching very high in the sky (especially in the Sagittarius region.

 

 

 

 

[DirkSteele]

Absolutely! As someone who has fortunately spent several months stargazing in the southern hemisphere over the last decade plus it really is something special. Not only do you have access to amazing stuff that does not clear the horizon in the north, but the central Milky Way gets really high (in 2016 I was in Namibia and Mars reached 88 degrees!) but you can still see a lot of the northern showpiece objects as well!

 

Our southern hemisphere astronomer brothers and sisters are very lucky indeed. Still in about 11 thousand years the milky way Centre will be nice and high for us so we will have the last laugh!  (And way better in 125 million years, but I am not sure I will live that long 😉).

 

 

Edited February 10 by DirkSteele
Typo x2

[greglloyd]

Yes, this is something I didn't realise until I watched this video last night . I didn't realise the sun (and solar system) are aligned at an angle of 62 degrees from the galactic plane. And therefore, it is actually a temporary thing (albeit at galactic timescales) that the southern hemisphere has the best view of the center of the galaxy. It's just a pity it will take 125 million years (as you said) until the northern hemisphere points directly towards it! Oh well!