Milky Way

Aug 10, 2007 by Jared Smith

It’s been a crazy summer and I have had few chances to get the telescope out. The night before last was a nice night and the Perseid meteor shower was just picking up, so I took the time to go out and observe for a while and take the picture below. This photo of the Milky Way covers about 80% of the distance from horizon to horizon. This image is looking outward across the disk of the galaxy we live in. The bright portions at the bottom are looking toward the center of our galaxy, where the majority of the stars are at. The other ‘glowing’ regions throughout are the residual glow of billions of stars throughout our galaxy. The dark areas are where dust is blocking the light from the stars behind. The small, red, glowing areas are mostly nebulae.

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