ICEINSPACE
Moon Phase
CURRENT MOON
Waning Gibbous 93.4%
|
|
09-06-2019, 01:45 AM
|
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Medlow Bath
Posts: 555
|
|
The structure of the Milky way.
After a club observing night last saturday and a conversation with a friend regarding the structure of the milkyway, I decided to find out about what features of our galaxy we are actually looking at. There were a few clear nights during the week so I decided to go out and see if I could trace out the different parts of our galaxy.
The structures of our galaxy are as follows-
-The centre of our galaxy resides in sagittarius, not far from M6, but is obscurred from view due to the dust clouds of the sagittarius-Carina spiral arm which is the next spiral arm in from our own.
-We can see part of the central bulge in sagittarius- especially in the large sagittarius star cloud(Baades window).
-We can also see part of the next spiral arm towards the hub, which is visible thanks to a window through the gas clouds in the sagittarius arm, which is known as messier 24.
-When we look along the milkyway from scutum to Carina, we are looking along the length of the sagittarius arm, the scutum starcloud being the part of the arm that winds its way towards the core( the direction of galactic rotation), and towards Carina, we are looking into the arm as it trails away from the core.
- When we look towards Cygnus we are looking into our spiral arm( not a full arm but a spur arm known as the orion spur.) as it wraps its way towards the hub.
-When we look out towards Canis major we are looking along our arm as it trails away from the center.
Looking towards Aquila, we are looking at the interarm space between the sagittarius arm and our own arm as they curve into the hub.
-Looking towards vela and Puppis we see the interarm space between the sagittarius arm and our own arm as they trail away from the hub..
-When facing Taurus-Auriga, we are looking through our arm towards the galactic anti centre(180 degrees from the hub). The milkyway between orion and perseus is broader here because we are closer to it.
-In Cassiopia, there is another window through which the next spiral arm out from ours can be viewed( the perseus arm). This is not visible from my latitude(34 degrees south), but could be seen from northern australia.
-The inner boundary of our arm is marked out by the stars of sagittarius, scorpio, ara, lupus, centaurus and crux. Most of this information is available on the net, and I have two books with a fair bit of information about the structure of the milky way-Binocular astronomy by Crossen and Tirrion and Exploring the southern sky by Laustsen,Madsen, west which has a fold out panoramic image of the milkyway which made it easy to see where the different structures were.
Thanks for reading.
Last edited by GUS.K; 09-06-2019 at 08:52 AM.
|
09-06-2019, 10:05 AM
|
|
Mostly harmless...
|
|
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posts: 5,716
|
|
Fascinating stuff - thanks for sharing Gus
Is anyone aware of this info in graphical/pictorial (or even 3D) form on the net anywhere?
|
09-06-2019, 05:14 PM
|
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Medlow Bath
Posts: 555
|
|
Thanks Rob. There was a thread on cloudy nights a few years back regarding this topic and it had numerous links to other sites. I’ll see if I can find it and post a link to it.
|
09-06-2019, 05:45 PM
|
|
Mostly harmless...
|
|
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posts: 5,716
|
|
|
10-06-2019, 08:42 PM
|
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Medlow Bath
Posts: 555
|
|
Thanks Rob, that's an interesting thread as well but not the one I mentioned, I wasn't able to find it but found another interesting site- Galaxymap.Org, has a lot of information and diagrams showing the structure of our galaxy.
|
13-06-2019, 08:44 PM
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Jun 2019
Location: sydney
Posts: 2
|
|
Thanks for well descriptive explanation about our galaxy. This thing is very interesting.
|
14-06-2019, 12:54 AM
|
|
Unregistered User
|
|
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Perth, Australia
Posts: 1,164
|
|
Another nice visual representation can be found here.
|
24-06-2019, 09:14 AM
|
Vixen Optics, Japan
|
|
Join Date: Feb 2018
Location: Florey ACT Australia
Posts: 34
|
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by GUS.K
After a club observing night last saturday and a conversation with a friend regarding the structure of the milkyway, I decided to find out about what features of our galaxy we are actually looking at. There were a few clear nights during the week so I decided to go out and see if I could trace out the different parts of our galaxy.
The structures of our galaxy are as follows-
-The centre of our galaxy resides in sagittarius, not far from M6, but is obscurred from view due to the dust clouds of the sagittarius-Carina spiral arm which is the next spiral arm in from our own.
-We can see part of the central bulge in sagittarius- especially in the large sagittarius star cloud(Baades window).
-We can also see part of the next spiral arm towards the hub, which is visible thanks to a window through the gas clouds in the sagittarius arm, which is known as messier 24.
-When we look along the milkyway from scutum to Carina, we are looking along the length of the sagittarius arm, the scutum starcloud being the part of the arm that winds its way towards the core( the direction of galactic rotation), and towards Carina, we are looking into the arm as it trails away from the core.
- When we look towards Cygnus we are looking into our spiral arm( not a full arm but a spur arm known as the orion spur.) as it wraps its way towards the hub.
-When we look out towards Canis major we are looking along our arm as it trails away from the center.
Looking towards Aquila, we are looking at the interarm space between the sagittarius arm and our own arm as they curve into the hub.
-Looking towards vela and Puppis we see the interarm space between the sagittarius arm and our own arm as they trail away from the hub..
-When facing Taurus-Auriga, we are looking through our arm towards the galactic anti centre(180 degrees from the hub). The milkyway between orion and perseus is broader here because we are closer to it.
-In Cassiopia, there is another window through which the next spiral arm out from ours can be viewed( the perseus arm). This is not visible from my latitude(34 degrees south), but could be seen from northern australia.
-The inner boundary of our arm is marked out by the stars of sagittarius, scorpio, ara, lupus, centaurus and crux. Most of this information is available on the net, and I have two books with a fair bit of information about the structure of the milky way-Binocular astronomy by Crossen and Tirrion and Exploring the southern sky by Laustsen,Madsen, west which has a fold out panoramic image of the milkyway which made it easy to see where the different structures were.
Thanks for reading.
|
Great post Ivan , I think most people gaze at the MilkyWay without any idea of where in it we are...
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
All times are GMT +10. The time is now 11:59 PM.
|
|