Which way out of the Milky Way??

[G4YVM]

Well not quite, but to other day i was stumped by a colleague of mine. We were discussing the things one can see in the night sky and the nature of intergalctic space etc etc, so a simple conversation then. Then he say, so when we look at the Milky Way at night we aree looking through the arm? Yes, says I. The he says..."which way?? In or out?"

Help!!!!

David

[Jarndyce]

Well not quite, but to other day i was stumped by a colleague of mine. We were discussing the things one can see in the night sky and the nature of intergalctic space etc etc, so a simple conversation then. Then he say, so when we look at the Milky Way at night we aree looking through the arm? Yes, says I. The he says..."which way?? In or out?"

Help!!!!

David

Depends which way you're looking.

The milky way runs 360 degrees across the sky - if you can see it.

I remember seeing the milky way from the sahara - no lights for hundreds of km. Now that's clear...

One of the group with us pointed out the "core" of the galaxy, which did seem a little brighter, but I wouldn't have known if he was wrong.

[themos]

Sagittarius marks the centre.

[barkis]

But don't travel to the centre, there's a Black Hole waiting for you, allegedly.

Ron.

[G4YVM]

Thanks all. Ron, phew, thanks for the heads up!

David

[Ant]

Isn't the Milky Way running though Orion almost directly away from the centre?

Ant

[Starman]

Yes, when you look at the winter Milky Way you're looking in the outward direction, away from the core. There are fewer stars in this direction so the winter MW tends to be fainter than its appearance in the other direction. The summer Milky Way shows us the way to the core which lays in the direction of Sagittarius. From the UK this doesn't get very high above the southern horizon but its brightening tends to offset some of the atmospheric attenuation that occurs due to the horizon murk. During the autumn and spring, normal observing times have you looking out of the plane of the Milky Way into the deepest darkest depths of space. With the distant stars of the Milky Way out of the way, here you'll find lots of other galaxies.

Here's a shot of the Milky Way's core low in the south I took from Selsey about 3 years ago (1 July 2006)...

http://www.digitalsky.org.uk/milkyway/milkyway-2006-07-01.jpg

[acey]

The Milky Way has several arms, named after their foreground constellations. We're on the one known as the Orion arm:

Orion Arm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Universe within 5000 Light Years - The Orion Arm