Each year around this time, we get our best view of our Milky Way during the early evening hours.
If you’ve ever seen this sight from a dark location, you know how amazing it is.
Those who have never seen it often believe it’s bright and colorful, because photos can show it that way. The problem is that cameras see the heavens differently than the human eye does.
Cameras capture detail and color that our eyes are too weak to see.
Compounding this problem is that many amateur photographers don’t understand the Milky Way, so they edit their images with garish colors reminiscent of a 1960s acid trip (so I’m told).
No, the Milky Way appears as a soft, subtle and colorless cloud arching across the heavens.
In fact, it’s not uncommon to hear stargazers remark, “Well, looks like clouds are moving in. I think I’ll be heading home.”
Noooo! This is the best part of the sky show!
This week our early evenings will have no moonlight to interfere with sky viewing, so it’s a great time to travel far from city lights to enjoy the Milky Way.
You will, of course, need to allow your eyes to become dark-adapted by not looking at bright white lights for at least a half-hour. You can, of course, use red light to help preserve your night vision.
Once your eyes are adjusted to the darkness, you’ll have little trouble spotting the Milky Way midway up in the eastern sky.
In the northwest, look for it passing through the constellation of Cassiopeia, the queen.
Don’t get hung up on trying to find a queen; look instead for a “W” of five equally bright stars not far above the northwestern horizon.
Follow the Milky Way’s band upward and toward the south, and you’ll see it crossing right through the Summer Triangle nearly overhead.
And if you continue following it southward, it’ll lead you right to the end of the Scorpion’s tail.
You’ll certainly notice that the Milky Way is not evenly illuminated along this arc but shows brighter and darker areas.
The bright regions are called “star clouds”; they’re not really clouds, of course, but areas where so many stars appear that the human eye sees just a “cloud.”
And those dark areas that look like holes in the Milky Way? These are called giant molecular clouds, which are so thick and opaque that they appear only in silhouette against the background stars.
It is within these clouds that new stars and planetary systems are continually being born.
Gaze at the brightest part of the Milky Way just east of Scorpius and you’ll be peering toward the galactic center.
Though we cannot see the galactic core itself, astronomers believe it is where a supermassive black hole lurks some 26,000 light-years away.
Don’t limit yourself to viewing with your eyes; binoculars reveal countless stars, star clusters and gaseous nebulae invisible to the eye — “deep sky” objects that just beg to be studied further with a small telescope.
Don’t miss this week’s chance to do some stargazing while enjoying a relaxing stroll along the Milky Way!
