Twilight can brighten the sky up to 2 hours before sunrise and 2 hours after sunset, so you want to avoid those times. By fall (September – November) the milky way will be best seen in the evening, before it sets. The summer months (June – August) are generally the best viewing time because it will be up most of the night. By June it will rise much earlier before midnight. In the spring (March – May), it will first become visible a few hours before sunrise. In the winter months (December – February) it is not visible at all because it’s too close to the sun. The other half it is located beneath the horizon. The core of the milky way is only visible about half of the year. Midsummer nights are great, especially when fireflies join the show. But to see the milky way there are a few other factors you have to consider. The purpose of DarkSiteFinder is to help you get away from light pollution and find a dark site to view the stars. Dust lanes, nebulas, and star clusters are all more concentrated in this area. Located in the constellation Sagittarius, this is the brightest part of the milky way. Andromeda is over 2.5 million light years from earth much too far to resolve individual stars without a powerful telescope.īut when most people talk about “seeing the milky way”, they are talking about the core of the galaxy. The only object you can see (without optical aid) in the sky outside of the milky way is the Andromeda Galaxy. And the milky way itself contains about 100 billion stars. Our galaxy stretches 100,000 light years wide. Every star you can see with the unaided eye is located within the milky way. The milky way galaxy is one out of at least 100 billion in the universe. But what you can see with just your eyes under a truly dark sky is still spectacular.Ī self portrait under the milky way What is the Milky Way? The contrast on the photos can also be enhanced later, so the view doesn’t always match exactly what the naked eye sees. There have been many nights I’ve brought a telescope along for stargazing and haven’t even touched it.Ī note about photos: A long exposure from a camera will pick up more stars and colors than the human eye can. Binoculars or a telescope will certainly show you more detail, but they’re not a requirement. But the scale of the milky way is huge! You don’t need a telescope to see or photograph it. If someone unfamiliar with it sees a picture of the milky way without a terrestrial reference point, they might assume it was taken with a telescope. There are few views as awe-inspiring as seeing the milky way from a dark site.
0 kommentar(er)
