The Milky Way
Many years ago, from Mahabalipuram, when I pointed out to my friends who were the pioneers of Astrophotography in India, and said, look...the Milky Way, they said, no clouds ! I persisted, and said, no its the Milky Way, the centre of our Galaxy, in the constellation Sagittarius. I kept gazing at it ! They looked at it now, only more intensely than before and ever since have been remembering this incident when we all meet. This fabulous spectacle became an ever lasting intriguing memory of natural power and splendour revealing itself as bright and dark patches of great fire power. Astrophotographers, simply are in love with it !
To the left of the photograph is East and top is North, approximately. The bright fuzzy cloud like nebulosity is the dense central region of the Milky Way Galaxy, just at the north-western edge of the constellation Sagittarius. The whole region shows extensive thick and thin nebulous clouds with intervening dark rift of dust that curves and divides as it spreads outwards from the galactic centre. It is seen all the way to the constellation Cygnus with its associated rift system, to the north, within the constellation Cygnus.
The right half of the photographs's middle and upward curvature of stars represent the constellation Scorpius. The brightest is designated Alpha Scorpii a red giant star called popularly Antaras, at the top of the photograph. It lies at a distance of 550 light years and is called the rival of Mars, as it is often difficult to distinguish it from the planet Mars that mimics it in colour and brightness, when it happens to lie near Antaras, in its trip around the Sun. In the middle is the star Shaula (lambda Scorpii) to the left of which can be seen the star open cluster Messier 7.
The Milky Way, can be better seen with simply the unaided eye. All that is required is a dark site and clear transparent skies. It is an awe inspiring spectacle to watch the curves of dusty dark lanes of intricate divisions with its varying opacity and thickness, that spread across the night sky, especially when the whole region is high up and culminating - the north south line the prime meridian, a great circle.
Binoculars are an advantage in revealing the intricate details of the Milky Way Galaxy, but with higher powers the field of view gets narrowed down and restricted. The wider the field of view (FOV) the better is our appreciation of the entire spectacle. The Milky Way Galaxy has anywhere between 100 to 400 billion stars. Our Sun together with the Solar System, travels around its centre taking about 240 million years to complete one full revolution around it, at the speed of 220 kilometres per second. The Solar System is located at a radius of about 27,000 light-years from the Galactic centre, on the inner edge of the Orion Arm, one of the spiral-shaped concentrations of gas and dust. The galactic center is an intense radio source known as Sagittarius A, a supermassive black hole of ~4 million solar masses.
This photograph was obtained with just a samsung mobile phone placed on a support over a water tank and giving an exposure of a few seconds with a high ISO. The images were later aligned and stacked in a computer and software enhanced with photoshop. The digital era has revolutionised astronomy in a magnificienat way. Amateur Astronomers all over the world have been narrowing down the division between the professional observatories doing research work at the world's largest leading observatories with the help of recent advancement of ever more sophistication in electronics and computers and sensitive equipment that has come their way.
Look Above
Vainu Bappu Observatory
Photograph & digital enhancement by: Aravind Anand.
Place: VBO, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Kavalur.
12°34′29″N 78°49′14″E.
700 meters (2,297 feet).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vainu_Bappu_Observatory>
<https://www.iiap.res.in/?q=vbo_vbt>
Date: 4th April, 2022.
Time: 10.30 UTC (3 AM IST).
Constellation: Sagittarius - Scorpius region.
Sky condition: No clouds, Still and hazy. Dew condensing by 1 am.
Messier objects seen: thru Binoculars: M42, Omega Centauri, M4, M13,
Constellations traced out: Orion, Canis Major, Canis Minor, Auriga, Gemini, Leo, Virgo, Coma Berenices, Scorpius, Sagittarius, Lyra, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor,
Early evening sky : Hazy.
