Milky Way, central region

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AAT image of the Center of the Milky Way

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This image was obtained from the AAT and shows the central region of our

Milky Way galaxy, situated in constellation Sagittarius, but near the

triangle with Scorpius and Ophiuchus. Many Messier objects show up here.

As north is about on the left, they are concentrated in the left half

of the picture; the southernmost Messier object, open cluster

M7, is just right and below center.

This image is a bit untypical for most time, but on the other hand,

demonstrates a typical phenomenon occuring periodically in the Milky Way:

Bright Jupiter (the brightest, yellowish “star” in the image) is just

passing between us and the Milky Way’s central region. This is possible as

the orbital plane of all planets, the ecliptic, is passing through our

image, and all three constellations mentioned above.

On the very right center, the Sagittarius star cloud

M24 can easily be found. Even more left to the

picture’s edge, a suggestion of open cluster M18

is just notable, while M17 seems to lie just beyond the edge.

Below and slightly left of M24, open cluster M25

can be found quite easily, while above right there’s an almost starlike

blueish patch which actually is open cluster M23

(it is almost exactly above Jupiter).

More to the right of M24, about one third to the image’s center,

is the bright red Lagoon Nebula M8, with slightly

above and left the very small, red-‘n’-blue

Trifid Nebula M20, and just left of it, open

cluster M21. The objects just mentioned, plus some

more northern, can be better found in our

M24 image.

The Galactic Center is situated almost exactly in the center of this image.

The irregular bright patch just right is the

Butterfly cluster M6, the more obvious cluster

below and slightly right of the center is splendid

M7.

The image also contains a larger percentage of all Milky Way globular

clusters, including many from the Messier catalog. Below Jupiter, bright

and yellow-orange colored globular cluster M22

is easily visible between two fainter stars, while fainter

M28 is just visible above Lambda Sagittarii,

the white star which is prominent right of Jupiter. At some distance below

Jupiter, the trapezium-shaped “teapot” asterism of Sagittarius is clearly

recognizable, and just below and right of its lowest star, on the edge of

the image, M54 can be glimpsed. Right of the

teapot and below the image’s center, bright white star Epsilon Sagittarii

leads the way to M69, which is the red-orange

patch above and left of the white star below and left of Epsilon. It is a

bit more difficult to identify M70 about

half-way between M69 and M54.

Some more of Messier’s globular clusters are situated within the field of

this image, but the present author could not identify them:

M9 should be in the upper part about half way

from the center to left, and M19 and

M62 should be just right of the upper middle.

Several conspicuous southern nebulae show up left of the center, but they are

too much south for Messier’s location in Paris.

This image is copyrighted and may be used for private purpose only. For any

other kind of use, including internet mirroring and storing on CD-ROM, please

contact Coral Cooksley of the

Anglo Australian Observatory.

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