APOD: The Road and the Milky Way (2022 Jun 11)

[APOD Robot]

The Road and the Milky Way

Explanation: At night you can follow this road as it passes through the Dark Sky Alqueva reserve not too far from Alentejo, Portugal. Or you could stop, look up, and follow the Milky Way through the sky. Both stretch from horizon to horizon in this 180 degree panorama recorded on June 3. Our galaxy's name, the Milky Way, does refer to its appearance as a milky path in the sky. The word galaxy itself derives from the Greek for milk. From our fair planet the arc of the Milky Way is most easily visible on moonless nights from dark sky areas, though not quite so bright or colorful as in this image. The glowing celestial band is due to the collective light of myriad stars along the galactic plane too faint to be distinguished individually. The diffuse starlight is cut by dark swaths of the galaxy's obscuring interstellar dust clouds. Standing above the Milky Way arc near the top of this panoramic nightscape is bright star Vega, with the galaxy's central bulge near the horizon at the right.

<< Previous APOD

This Day in APOD

Next APOD >>

[orin stepanek]

MilkyWayArchCumeada-fb1200.jpg

At first I thought there was a sharp bend in the road; till I saw it was
a horizon to horizon photo!

APOD, though not quite so bright or colorful as in this image

I remember as a boy looking at the Milky Way; it was looking Quite
bright, but there was hardly any light polution way back then!

2022-June-AM-Planets-smaller-text.jpg

Probably would be difficult to see Mercury; but should be nice
sighting of Venus!

[VictorBorun]

Vega but no Deneb?

[alter-ego]

Vega but no Deneb?

Vega is the "star" attraction here.

[johnnydeep]

Man, my first search for "Dark Sky Alqueva reserve" in Bing put me about 1000 miles to the west off the coast of Portugal:

https://www.bing.com/maps?q=Dark+Sky+Al ... O-c9d0fc87

Oddly though, Bing still had the correct website address: https://darkskyalqueva.com

A google search got me to Portugal, and to what is apparently the correct place - https://goo.gl/maps/by8DQm3pKe2i4U6FA

I was trying to understand how the MW would look to someone standing on that road in the APOD. Zooming in on the google map leads me to believe the road is pretty straight - see https://goo.gl/maps/z1SkfQEEivN569Cq9 - but I'm still not sure how the arc of the MW would appear to a naked eye observer. I suffer from a failure of 3D imaging software.

[alter-ego]

Man, my first search for "Dark Sky Alqueva reserve" in Bing put me about 1000 miles to the west off the coast of Portugal:

https://www.bing.com/maps?q=Dark+Sky+Al ... O-c9d0fc87

Oddly though, Bing still had the correct website address: https://darkskyalqueva.com

A google search got me to Portugal, and to what is apparently the correct place - https://goo.gl/maps/by8DQm3pKe2i4U6FA

I was trying to understand how the MW would look to someone standing on that road in the APOD. Zooming in on the google map leads me to believe the road is pretty straight - see https://goo.gl/maps/z1SkfQEEivN569Cq9 - but I'm still not sure how the arc of the MW would appear to a naked eye observer. I suffer from a failure of 3D imaging software.

It would appear straight and near the zenith. The Stellarium screenshot shows the fisheye view with a 360° horizon, and the horizontal coordinate system. The zenith is at the center. Of course, since the view below more closely replicates the APOD image, it too appears more colorful and brighter than you'd see with your eyes.
 

MW View.jpg

[johnnydeep]

Man, my first search for "Dark Sky Alqueva reserve" in Bing put me about 1000 miles to the west off the coast of Portugal:

https://www.bing.com/maps?q=Dark+Sky+Al ... O-c9d0fc87

Oddly though, Bing still had the correct website address: https://darkskyalqueva.com

A google search got me to Portugal, and to what is apparently the correct place - https://goo.gl/maps/by8DQm3pKe2i4U6FA

I was trying to understand how the MW would look to someone standing on that road in the APOD. Zooming in on the google map leads me to believe the road is pretty straight - see https://goo.gl/maps/z1SkfQEEivN569Cq9 - but I'm still not sure how the arc of the MW would appear to a naked eye observer. I suffer from a failure of 3D imaging software.

It would appear straight and near the zenith. The Stellarium screenshot shows the fisheye view with a 360° horizon, and the horizontal coordinate system. The zenith is at the center. Of course, since the view below more closely replicates the APOD image, it too appears more colorful and brighter than you'd see with your eyes.
 
MW View.jpg

How you manage to do this stuff is amazing. So, if you assume the road is straight, how would it be oriented under this sky on your image?

[johnnydeep]

Vega but no Deneb?

Vega is the "star" attraction here.

Using your labeled pic from above, I'd guess the other stars are here ... maybe (please ignore the black artifact I manage to put in the middle during "editing"):

[alter-ego]

Man, my first search for "Dark Sky Alqueva reserve" in Bing put me about 1000 miles to the west off the coast of Portugal:

https://www.bing.com/maps?q=Dark+Sky+Al ... O-c9d0fc87

Oddly though, Bing still had the correct website address: https://darkskyalqueva.com

A google search got me to Portugal, and to what is apparently the correct place - https://goo.gl/maps/by8DQm3pKe2i4U6FA

I was trying to understand how the MW would look to someone standing on that road in the APOD. Zooming in on the google map leads me to believe the road is pretty straight - see https://goo.gl/maps/z1SkfQEEivN569Cq9 - but I'm still not sure how the arc of the MW would appear to a naked eye observer. I suffer from a failure of 3D imaging software.

It would appear straight and near the zenith. The Stellarium screenshot shows the fisheye view with a 360° horizon, and the horizontal coordinate system. The zenith is at the center. Of course, since the view below more closely replicates the APOD image, it too appears more colorful and brighter than you'd see with your eyes.
 
MW View.jpg

How you manage to do this stuff is amazing. So, if you assume the road is straight, how would it be oriented under this sky on your image?

Yeah, thanks. I do enjoy navigating through the morass of stars and galaxies. It'd be fun to try an intra-galactic, interactive navigation simulator where there'd be cosmic navigation landmarks and a few million stars to go to at mega-warp speeds! I'd love to have an option where I get dumped at some random position, then find my way home! Pretty trippy.

---

Yes, your star annotations are correct! Nice job! Those stars happen to be the three brightest stars in the APOD. Vega is #1.

Prior to your road placement question, I wanted to reorient my fish-eye view to the APOD view. Lo and behold, it looked way off. I quickly concluded the exposure timing(s) were earlier in the night. The APOD view is far from the zenith. Identifying Vega's altitude in the APOD put about 35° lower, and almost due east. I also identified an asterism just above the road to nail the southward heading direction.

Bottom line: The best I can ascertain, the road (middle of the APOD) heads almost due east, and makes about a 90° bend and then heads due south. Note, the MW will appear curved wrt the horizon.

A few things:
• It's difficult, or likely not possible, to draw straight-lines to demarcate the APOD image boundaries, so instead, I posted an oversized Stellarium view, including the zenith.
• I labeled Polaris as a reference. The APOD composite does not show Polaris as it's just beyond the left edge (5°) of the APOD, and about 15% down from the top edge. Also, most, it not all, of Cassiopeia is behind the tree at the base of the MW.
• Per David Cruz's imaging steps, the total sequenced exposure time was at least 30 minutes. The process of blending these images into the panorama logically introduces distortion that negates any standard projection simulations within Stellarium:

For this 180° panorama I went with 6 panels for the sky and 6 panels Foreground. For the Sky I shoot for each panel 5x1min tracked exposures to stack them and reduce noise. For the foreground I shoot each panel 4x30s untracked exposures. The sky and foreground were later blended together in editing.

 

MW View - Corrected.jpg

[johnnydeep]

It would appear straight and near the zenith. The Stellarium screenshot shows the fisheye view with a 360° horizon, and the horizontal coordinate system. The zenith is at the center. Of course, since the view below more closely replicates the APOD image, it too appears more colorful and brighter than you'd see with your eyes.
 
MW View.jpg

How you manage to do this stuff is amazing. So, if you assume the road is straight, how would it be oriented under this sky on your image?

Yeah, thanks. I do enjoy navigating through the morass of stars and galaxies. It'd be fun to try an intra-galactic, interactive navigation simulator where there'd be cosmic navigation landmarks and a few million stars to go to at mega-warp speeds! I'd love to have an option where I get dumped at some random position, then find my way home! Pretty trippy.

---

Yes, your star annotations are correct! Nice job! Those stars happen to be the three brightest stars in the APOD. Vega is #1.

Prior to your road placement question, I wanted to reorient my fish-eye view to the APOD view. Lo and behold, it looked way off. I quickly concluded the exposure timing(s) were earlier in the night. The APOD view is far from the zenith. Identifying Vega's altitude in the APOD put about 35° lower, and almost due east. I also identified an asterism just above the road to nail the southward heading direction.

Bottom line: The best I can ascertain, the road (middle of the APOD) heads almost due east, and makes about a 90° bend and then heads due south. Note, the MW will appear curved wrt the horizon.

A few things:
• It's difficult, or likely not possible, to draw straight-lines to demarcate the APOD image boundaries, so instead, I posted an oversized Stellarium view, including the zenith.
• I labeled Polaris as a reference. The APOD composite does not show Polaris as it's just beyond the left edge (5°) of the APOD, and about 15% down from the top edge. Also, most, it not all, of Cassiopeia is behind the tree at the base of the MW.
• Per David Cruz's imaging steps, the total sequenced exposure time was at least 30 minutes. The process of blending these images into the panorama logically introduces distortion that negates any standard projection simulations within Stellarium:

For this 180° panorama I went with 6 panels for the sky and 6 panels Foreground. For the Sky I shoot for each panel 5x1min tracked exposures to stack them and reduce noise. For the foreground I shoot each panel 4x30s untracked exposures. The sky and foreground were later blended together in editing.

 
MW View - Corrected.jpg

Thanks! Great stuff.