The Summer Milky Way

The stars of sum­mer always remind me of a friend I had in col­lege and of a glo­ri­ous June night when she gave me the great­est gift of all.

Every­one called her Star because of her inter­est in astronomy.

It was late August dur­ing fresh­men ori­en­ta­tion week, and the Milky Way stood directly over­head in the early morn­ing hours after mid­night, as it does now.

I had done more than a bit of stargaz­ing with my old man’s set of three-buck, plas­tic lens opera glasses. How­ever, such was the light-polluted nature of Youngstown, Ohio, that I had never seen the Milky Way in all its glory.

Star lured me out that night in vio­la­tion of the uni­ver­sity cur­few with a vague promise of stargaz­ing and other things.

I went with her, but I have to admit that stars were the fur­thest things from my mind.

We walked to a park near the col­lege. As we lay down on the wet grass, I could see a dim, wide streak of light stretch­ing across the sky.

“That,” said Star, “is our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is like a river of stars stretch­ing from the north­east to the south­ern hori­zon.” I knew all of those things, of course, but I was entranced anyway.

In the north­east just down from Cas­siopeia, Star pointed out that the hazy glow of the Milky Way con­densed into a brighter patch of light. In our binoc­u­lars, we could see the famous Dou­ble Clus­ter, two clus­ters of stars right next to each other.

Almost straight over­head in the direc­tion of Cygnus, the Swan, the Milky Way is at its bright­est. “Here, you are look­ing directly out into a spi­ral arm of the galaxy,” Star said. “The cross shape of the swan seems to be fly­ing directly over the river of light that forms the Milky Way.”

We swept the Milky Way in Cygnus with binoc­u­lars and saw many places where it con­densed into clus­ters of stars.

In Cygnus, the river seemed to branch into two streams. The main stream con­tin­ued south. A side stream seemed to curl slightly to the southwest.

“The dark lane between the two streams is called the Great Rift,” she said. “It’s caused by an expanse of unil­lu­mi­nated dust and gas that, besides the stars, also make up our galaxy.”

The main stream con­tin­ued toward the south into the con­stel­la­tions Sagit­tar­ius and Scor­pius. Here the Milky Way was a fainter glow, obscured, said Star, by the dust and gas lying between us and that part of the galaxy.

Above the teapot shape of the con­stel­la­tion Sagit­tar­ius, Star showed me hazy patches of light that didn’t resolve into stars but had stars imbed­ded in them, places with names like the Lagoon, the Eagle, the Check­mark and the Tri­fid. Star spoke so qui­etly I almost couldn’t hear her: “Out of those clouds of hydro­gen, the raw mate­r­ial of the uni­verse, stars are being born.”

We stood. She pointed dra­mat­i­cally to the south toward the teapot of Sagit­tar­ius where the Milky Way pos­sesses its most sub­tle beauty and com­plex­ity. “There,” she said, “there is the cen­ter of our galaxy.”

Star and I haven’t kept in touch over the years. But I shall never for­get the sight of her sil­hou­et­ted against the starry sky with her hand out­stretched toward the cen­ter of the galaxy.

I wanted the sun and the moon from her that night. She gave me the uni­verse instead.

Thanks, Star. I owe you one.

Plan­ets

Mars is under­neath the star Denebola in the con­stel­la­tion Leo. Look south­west just after dark. What with Day­light Sav­ing Time and all, “just after dark” means 10:45 p.m. or so. Lately, Mars isn’t much to look at in a tele­scope, but it shines quite brightly to the unaided eye as an orange point of light.

The same can­not be said of Sat­urn. It is, and always will be, the gem of the night in even the small­est of tele­scopes. Look to the south just after dark in Virgo directly above the star Spica. If you haven’t seen it in a tele­scope, then you have missed one of the grand­est expe­ri­ences that human eyes can behold.

Tom Burns is the direc­tor of Ohio Wes­leyan University’s Perkins Obser­va­tory, and he would be very happy to answer your ques­tions or sell you a ticket to one of its upcom­ing Friday-night pro­grams. He can be reached at tlburns@owu.edu or 740–363‑1257.

Posted by Tom Burns on Jun 17 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.