Our Biggest Natural Wonder

[glenc]

Our Biggest Natural Wonder is not Uluru or the Great Barrier Reef or the Sun.
It is the Milky Way on a dark clear night.
Here is an image of its center.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0811/galacticcenter_glimpse_big.jpg
and some wider views:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051004.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050605.html
http://home.arcor-online.de/axel.mellinger/mwpan_aitoff.html
http://home.arcor-online.de/axel.mellinger/mwpan45_c.html

[glenc]

There are two nebulae near the center of the Milky Way. They are Sharpless 2-16 and 17.
Sh 2-16 is the brightest of the two and it contains the open cluster Collinder 347.
Galactic latitude 0 longitude 0 is between these two nebulae.
http://galaxymap.org/cgi-bin/details.py?id=21607&t=hii&s=4_p31.5xp41.0&name=S16
http://galaxymap.org/cgi-bin/details.py?id=21606&t=hii&s=4_p31.5xp41.0&name=S17

[Smirnoff]

Damn right it's the Milky way on a dark night! Us southerners are damn fortunate to have the core directly overhead and the Eta Carinae region aswell :D

[astrojase]

Profound glenc - I would say the night sky as a whole is our biggest natural wonder. In fact, it should be protected much in the same way our parks and forrests are protected.

Imagine how much energy, greenhouse gas, carbon whozeewhatsits would be saved if we, as a civilization, just had that much more respect for the night sky. (start light pollution debate here...)

[mozzie]

that's right a life time to learn and still know nothing :shrug: for the rest of the masses look what they are missing out on:whistle::whistle:

[taminga16]

That's the trouble Pete, they don't look at what they are missing out on.

Greg.

[xelasnave]

I love to sit outside when the center of the galaxy is pretty well direct overhead and just take it in... I never get tired of trying to get photos of it either.

alex

[taminga16]

Hi Alex,
I find that doing the same provides me a warmth in knowing just how small I really am (not to mention all of the untold history).

Regards,

Greg.

[garyp]

Hi astrojase,On the subject of natural wonders check this out

http://http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaruherald/4766664a6571.html
I've posted this before but it relates to your thoughts here. It seems others are also interested in protecting our night sky.

Cheers

Gary

[glenc]

Gary, I had trouble with that link.

[astrojase]

I had trouble with the above link too.

But, see: http://www.manitoulindarksky.com/

Dark sky sanctuary - need some of these in Oz...

[garyp]

Sorry guys. Not sure why it's not working.

Try again:)http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaruherald/4766664a6571.html

Nice to see the link to Manitou Island too.

Cheers
Gary:)

[Jen]

:eyepop: now that looks beautiful :thumbsup:

[glenc]

AT A RECENT COUNT THE MILKY WAY CONTAINED:

1,776 Star Clusters
Optically visible open clusters and Candidates (Dias+ 2002-2007)
http://webviz.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-source=VII/229

150 Star Balls
Catalog Of Parameters For Milky Way Globular Clusters (Harris, 2003)
http://physwww.physics.mcmaster.ca/~harris/mwgc.dat (http://physwww.physics.mcmaster.ca/%7Eharris/mwgc.dat)
http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-meta.foot&-source=VII/202

66,887 Gas Clouds (including 2,177 optical sources)
Catalog of Star-Forming Regions in the Galaxy (Avedisova, 2002)
http://webviz.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-source=V/112A

5,046 Dark Clouds
Atlas and Catalog of Dark Clouds (Dobashi+, 2005)
http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-meta.foot&-source=VII/244A

1,143 + 903 = 2,046 Gas Balls
Strasbourg-ESO Catalogue of Galactic Planetary Nebulae (Acker+, 1992)
http://webviz.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-source=V/84
MASH Catalogues of Planetary Nebulae (Parker+ 2006-2008)
http://webviz.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-source%3DMASH/mash1


ALSO OUTSIDE THE MILKY WAY THERE ARE:

983,261 Milky Ways (to B magnitude 18)
HYPERLEDA. I. Catalog of galaxies (Paturel+, 2003)
http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-meta.foot&-source=VII/237

That should keep the DSO observers busy for a few nights!
Objects in the LMC and SMC are not included in the lists above.

[astrojase]

Thanks for updating the link gary.

Absolutely brilliant...this text taken from the link you supplied... ["Through the initiatives of the Mackenzie District Council most of the required regulatory ordinances that might be required for such a status are already in place...

All Tekapo streets lights are sodium and shielded from above to reduce the glow and all household lights must face down - not up."]

Now there is a council that I would re-elect everytime!!! Smart people, perhaps some local councils in Australia can take a leaf out of our trans-tasman buddies book.

[astrojase]

That is why I said the whole sky glenc, lol. But technically speaking, apart from other galaxies, the whole sky is everything in the Milky Way anyway, so we both agree on the same thing (am I arguing with myself?)...

[glenc]

The bright star at the top of the attached image is 3 Sgr (mag 4.6) and the nebula at the bottom is Sharpless 2-16.
The middle of the Milky Way is up and to the right of Sh2-16. This image is from http://www.sky-map.org/

[Wavytone]

The Milky Way isn't "ours".
We don't own it, we can't claim it, buy or sell it, can't "go there" and we can't even make any use of it.
And we're probably not the sole inhabitants of this galaxy, or the first...

[glenc]

You can say most of that about the Great Barrier Reef and Uluru too.
We can go to the MW, we are in it and we can encourage people to look at it, make it a tourist attraction.
We can go there with our telescopes. The Milky Way is "best" seen from 6 countries, one of them is Australia.
Five other countries lie under the center of the MW; Chile, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Lesotho.
Also different cultures have different attitudes to "ownership".

[glenc]

The outside edge of the Milky Way is about 4.3 degrees to the right of beta Tauri (Elnath) at 1am DST. It is on the left of the mid point between M35 and M37. If you travel 20,000 light years in that direction you will leave our galaxy. The attached SkyMapPro map labels it 180.

[glenc]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7774287.stm
"The black hole is four million times more massive than our Sun, according to the paper in The Astrophysical Journal...The researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany said the black hole was 27,000 light years, or 158 thousand, million, million miles from the Earth. "
Also today's APOD: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
"Astronomers patiently measured the positions of the stars over time, following one star, designated S2, through a complete orbit as it came within about 1 light-day of the center of the Milky Way"
1 light-day from a black hole sounds pretty close.