Delving into the dark skies of Dartmoor
The sky was wonderfully clear over my favourite dark sky site on Dartmoor on Saturday night, meaning I was able to spend several hours imaging objects in and around the Milky Way. Below are some of my images from that session, including a few of the lovely noctilucent cloud display that appeared over the northern horizon at about 02:00 BST. Clicking on each image will open a larger version.
- The Milky Way in Scutum & Sagittarius. Credit: Will Gater
- The globular cluster M22. Credit: Will Gater
- Noctilucent clouds on the northern horizon. Credit: Will Gater
- A close-up of the NLCs showing intricate structures. Credit: Will Gater
- Wave structures within the 3 July 2011 noctilucent cloud display. Credit: Will Gater
- More wave structures within the 3 July noctilucent cloud display. Credit: Will Gater
Scanning the summer night skies
This month’s Sky at Night Magazine vodcast is all about some of the things you can see in the night sky during the summer months. From glittering star clusters to glowing nebulae there’s something for everyone to observe over the coming weeks; in fact, many of the objects covered in the video can be spotted with a good pair of binoculars.
The vodcast is illustrated with several star charts to help you track down some of the more elusive objects, but if you require something a little more detailed then have a look at the free planetarium program Stellarium.
As usual, make sure you select the 720p HD setting for the best video quality. Clear skies and happy summer stargazing!
Video courtesy of Sky at Night Magazine.
The sparkling treasures of the summer Milky Way
The Milky Way over Dartmoor (click to see a bigger version). Credit: Will Gater
I thought I’d just briefly share this image with you all and give you a quick heads-up for some sights to look out for in the night sky at the moment.
I took this image last weekend from one of my favourite dark sky sites on Dartmoor. It shows our galaxy, the Milky Way, towards the constellations of Sagittarius and Scutum. I particularly wanted to mention this as the next few weeks are a good time for any of you in the UK, with a clear southern horizon, to look out for the lovely celestial objects on show in this part of the sky.
To help you find the objects — such as the wonderful and bright Lagoon Nebula as well as several fine clusters — I’ve posted a labelled (but slightly cropped) version of the image below. This part of the sky can be found by looking for the famous ‘Teapot’ asterism (labelled) in the south around midnight. Pretty much all of the objects I’ve marked make good small telescope or binocular targets. So, if you’re out observing anytime soon, have a look for some of them.
A Milky Way metro?
Artist’s impression of the Milky Way Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
When I started my degree in London years ago one of the first things I had to get to grips with was navigating the Tube. Fortunately it took no time at all, thanks to the world famous tube map, originally designed by Harry Beck in the 1930s. Its ingenious design simplifies the mish-mash of routes across London into an easy to read diagram, allowing the reader to work out how to get where they want to go, easily. It’s with this in mind that Harvard computational sociologist Samuel Arbesman has come up with the “Milky Way Transit Authority” map. It’s a tube map style diagram of our home in the Cosmos — the Milky Way. Replete with all the must see stops in the Galaxy (the Orion nebula stop isn’t finished yet and there’s a really strong wind whistling through the P Cygni station) the map neatly shows our place in space. You can download it as a .pdf on Samuel’s webpage (.pdf link here), but be warned; with news like this cropping up every now and then, a journey on the ‘Orion line’ might take a bit longer than expected!
