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Dark SkiesGroup SURPRISE

VIEWOur Galaxy – A Milky Band

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With your naked eye you can see our own Galaxy as a diffuse white band stretching across the sky. You are seeing billions of stars like our Sun. The dark lanes are interstellar dust with more stars waiting to be born.

ESA 2002This space telescope was built by European Space Agency and includes British technology. It is observing microwaves and seeing extremely cold gas in our Galaxy and the echo of the Big Bang.

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In 1785 the British astronomer Herschel was the first to sketch our own Galaxy the Milky Way.

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Part of the Milky Way that is just about to set as seen by Planck. The red areas are cold dust in our Galaxy nearly -250 degrees cold and up to 500 light years away.

Amazing space telescopes are observing our Milky Way like the Planck satellite. You too can observe it but you need quite dark skies.

Already many parts in the Peak District are too bright to enjoy this wonder of the night. Light pollution can rob us of many wonders of the sky like the Milky way.

A view of the night sky in mid October 1 hour after sunset.

A more detailed map can be downloaded at ….

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