Milky Way

Observed: Points: 100

Available Challenges:

You and Galileo: 1610 A.D.

Current Info for Observer

as of 11/30/2023 12:17 a.m.

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General Info

Type	Galaxy
Constellation	Sagittarius
Right ascension	17^h45'0''
Declination	^-29°0'0''
Magnitude	5
Distance	20,000ly
Size	10800 arc min
Catalog Designations
The milky way is what we call our home galaxy. When we look at the sky and see it, we are looking into the spiral arm in which our solar system is located. Image "ESO-VLT-Laser-phot-33a-07" by ESO - http://www.eso.org/gallery/v/ESOPIA/Paranal/phot-33a-07.tif.html. Licensed under CC BY 3.0

Generate a finder chart

The following form will generate a PDF finder chart suitable for printing using to locate objects in the sky with your telescope!

The Date is only really useful for solar system objects, as deep space objects move measurably only on a galactic timescale.

The larger the F.O.V (field of view), the more "zoomed out" the object will appear. It can be helpful to print several charts of the same object with different field of views.

Limiting the magnitude (remember, lower magnitude means brighter!) of stars and objects can make sure your chart is not cluttered with dim objects that you may not be visible to you anyway. The defaults are good, but try experimenting with raising and lowering the values.