The Milky Way and its star fields

The soft light of our Galaxy weaves a subtle band across the sky

A view of the misty light of our Galaxy from a dark-sky site can be one of the most profound and awe-inspiring sights for any beginner to stargazing, especially in the UK summer months when part of the core of the Milky Way sits over the southern horizon. But it’s also one astronomical sight where there’s a stark difference between highly processed pictures and how it actually looks to the eye, even under dark skies. Nightscape astrophotography containing the Milky Way often shows a billowing band of bright, almost dazzling, light stretching across the sky, sometimes accompanied by prominent flourishes of colour where glowing starforming nebulae sit. However, to the naked-eye under a suburban sky, even perceiving the soft light of our Galaxy can be challenging, since even a modest amount of background light pollution is enough to hide its faint glow.

On nights when the air is particularly clear, when the atmospheric ‘transparency’ is excellent, it’s certainly possible to see the brighter patches of Milky Way star fields – such as those that sit in Cygnus or Scutum – from suburban areas. Under these conditions the Galaxy’s star fields tend to appear as diffuse swathes of light sitting within the overall suburban skyglow, and they’re subtle enough that they can sometimes be confused with patches of thin cloud.

To get a sense of the Milky Way as an obvious band of light across the sky requires somewhat darker locations. Under the inkiest-black skies the band of the Galaxy still appears as a greyish glow, but the soft forms of its numerous star fields appear far more structured and the many dark dust lanes weaving through them are clear to see. Still, don’t expect to see the grainy mass of light, rich in colour and contrast typically seen in photos.