What can we see in this picture? (Milky way)

a reply to: Biigs

Ah! I see what you're saying. You were referring to hypothetical life in the picture, not the stars themselves. My bad!

A while back I made an Excel spreadsheet with a modified Drake equation. I added a feature so that when the number of communicating civilizations was calculated, it would figure out the average distance between such civilizations in our galaxy.

The upshot is, you're right: Even with fairly optimistic assumptions, the average distance between communicating civilizations may be hundreds of light years, if not more.

originally posted by: Saint Exupery
a reply to: VexedSoul

You are looking straight at the core of our Milky Way Galaxy, which is in the direction of the teapot-shaped constellation Sagittarius

Like most spiral galaxies, there's a lot of dust in the plane of the disk.

Example (NGC4565):

...

As Alpha Hawk and St. Exupery pointed out, we are looking at the center disk of our galaxy "edge-on" , along with dark dust in between.

It should be noted that since we are toward the outside perimeter of our spiral galaxy (about 2/3 of the way out from the center); therefore we are far enough away from the center bulge to be able to see quite a bit of our own galaxy. We are far enough away from the center to be actually able to see that center.

- - - - - - -

Another interesting implication of the fact that our view of our galaxy is edge-on is that it is very difficult to know what is on the other side of the galaxy -- the side directly opposite the galactic core -- simply because the galactic core is in our way. It's similar to putting your hands in front of your face, and trying to determine what is in front of you.


We can definitely not "see" whats in that area obscured by the galactic core (and the intervening dust) using visible light telescopes, but we have recently begun to map a bit of that by using other means -- radio and infrared telescopes -- but even then it is a laborious process due to the galactic core being big, bright, and dense, and very little has been learned.

a reply to: VexedSoul

The astrometry.net blind solver will identify and list the stars in your photos for you. Very handy service. I found out about it through Flickr.

a reply to: Saint Exupery

Well it is interesting the drake equation.

I believe its correct but it doesnt really address the space and time of travel aspect, do i believe an alien race could detect us and travel to us? absolutely. will we exist when they get here or perhaps will they still exist when they get here? sorry but thats hugely unlikely.

the problem is, once we got technology we starting world wars and they have not finished yet... can you even imagine the same stuff of an alien planet? They could have blown them selves up years ago, thousands even millions of years ago.

We are possessive evil mean creatures and we were made this may by a Savage planet, people always say "omg humans are so evil etc" yeah we didnt get this way because we are inherently evil, we did it because thought we had to to survive, who says an alien race hasnt got the same problems? Thats the real arrogance.

a reply to: VexedSoul

I am not well-versed enough in astronomy to answer your question. It is certainly a beautiful photo!

I have both the Google sky app and the Stellarium app on my device and I prefer (far and away) Stellarium. You point your device in the direction of the stars you want more information about, and it will show you constellations, planets, nebulae, comets, and anything else of particular interest in that portion of the sky. VERY handy tool; I use it all the time on my nighttime walks with the dog. Now you can identify stars, constellations, and nebulae; maybe even memorize a few so you can recognize them on sight next time. Makes you an instant astronomer.

originally posted by: AlphaHawk
a reply to: JadeStar

Second actually.

But who's counting?!

Star for you too! Sorry I was half asleep before

originally posted by: alienscot1
a reply to: VexedSoul

The astrometry.net blind solver will identify and list the stars in your photos for you. Very handy service. I found out about it through Flickr.

And its about to get a WHOLE lot more accurate thanks to the GAIA mission

a reply to: VexedSoul

Very nice image from your Canon nice 30 second exposure the answer to your problem is HERE

AH already posted

I saw it! The Chubbchubbs are coming!

a reply to: VexedSoul

Was lucky enough to spend in some time in Queenstown years ago, beautiful part of the world.

What kind of lens etc did you use to take the pic? Just bought my first DSLR camera and would like to learn how to take some astronomy snaps.

originally posted by: sarra1833
I can't help with telling what is what as I'm sure your star set up is different than USA set up, but I do have to reply to say if that is what is seen in the night sky in New Zealand, and NZ on its own is just so so so gorgeous scenery-wise, that's just more reason to move there.

Sadly I'll never have enough points to be allowed to move there

Shame. It always has been my number one place to move. I'll have to settle for Aussie. Close enough I suppose, hehe.

That is a GORGEOUS pic and I hope someone on here will be able to help you out. I'm curious myself now. thank you so much for sharing. S&F for this gorgeous view.

Off topic, but that is an amazing tattoo you have there........if it's not your arm, it's still an amazing tattoo!

a reply to: VexedSoul There may be something in these that will assist. One link is the Gould Belt. Our sun is in the center of it.

galaxymap.org...

The second link contains other pictures for how the Gould Belt fits in to the overall Milky Way band. There are very nice depictions about 3/4 way down.

www.handprint.com...

Someday, perhaps, it would be nice to see the sky with all of its stars. Sadly, I live in a city so I can barely see any.