There’s still a lot of great stargazing you can do even you live in an urban-suburban setting, but unfortunately the lights more have cast a permanent luminance across our night skies. One of the celestial victims is the Milky Way, that magical ribbon of light that runs through the summer skies. Head out to the countryside, though, and you can recapture its magnificence. It’s well worth a trip in the late summer or early fall.
Once you’re out there, the great white river will be waiting for you. It arches across the high eastern sky, meeting the horizon in the northeast and southwest. By 10 p.m. the arch rises high enough to bisect the sky. You’re witnessing the billions and billions of stars that make up the thickest part of the disk of stars we call our home galaxy, the Milky Way, made of up at least 200 billion stars and countless numbers of other planets. The diameter of the Milky Way spans an incredible 100,000 light years. There are so many stars in our line of sight in the Milky Way band that it appears as a milky ribbon.
Along the starry river of the Milky Way are some prominent constellations. On the northeast side is Cassiopeia the Queen, the one that looks like a sideways letter W.
About halfway across the Milky Way, high in the eastern sky, look for three bright stars, the brightest ones in that area. They form what’s known as the Summer Triangle. While it’s not an official constellation it’s a great tool. The triangle will help you find three constellations, since those three stars are the brightest in their respective constellations; Lyra the Harp, Aquila the Eagle, and Cygnus the Swan.
Cygnus is nicknamed the Northern Cross since that’s what it actually looks like. Its brightest star is Deneb, which doubles as the top of the cross and tail of the swan. .
On the southwest end of the Milky Way, near the horizon, is the zodiac constellation Sagittarius, the archer centaur that looks a heck of a lot more like a teapot.
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
