HOW CAN I SEE THE MILKY WAY?

WHEN: SUMMER (MAY-OCTOBER)

In 1994, a power cut in Los Angeles plunged the city into darkness. With the sudden lack of light pollution, a strange glow appeared in the night sky, causing some concerned citizens to call the emergency services. The silvery cloud they were seeing for the first time?

Their own galaxy.

Those LA residents aren’t alone in not seeing the Milky Way before. A third of people around the world can’t see it because of light pollution. But the good news is, if you travel somewhere dark and let your eyes adjust, you can still see the magic of the Milky Way.

Our Solar System is part of the Milky Way, which is a spiral galaxy. We sit on one of the arms of the Galaxy, and in the centre there are millions of stars. From Earth this looks like a band, densely populated with stars, that stretches across the sky. The Milky Way is visible from May to October, and in July it’s visible as soon as it gets dark.

To see the light from the Milky Way, it’s best to minimise light pollution as much as possible (get away from streetlights, if you can safely). Once in the darkness, let your eyes adjust for at least 40 minutes.

Pick a night with little to no moonlight, to minimise glare from the lunar surface. On 10 July there will be a new Moon, so try to look for the Milky Way as close to this day as possible.

To help find the Milky Way, we can use an asterism called the Summer Triangle. This is made up of three bright stars located high in the sky in July (Vega, Deneb and Altair). To find the Summer Triangle, just look high to the south and southeast in the sky. The Milky Way runs through Deneb and Altair.