Your guide to constellations, deep sky objects, planets, and events.
Alas, we see very little outside our own backyard, a tiny neighborhood of our galaxy where the Sun is common, just another three-bed, two-bath star in the suburbs of the Milky Way. ~ Almost all of the sky objects visible to the naked eye are stars that reside in our galaxy.
~
There are roughly 300 billion stars in the Milky Way. ~ Roughly 2,500 stars are available to the unaided eye in ideal conditions from a single spot at a given time.
~
Clear and dark skies reveal a handful of nearby galaxies, but each is on the fringe of naked-eye visibility.
The Great Orion Nebula (M42, NGC 1976) and NGC 1977 to the north (left in this photo) are located in the ‘Sword’ part of the constellation of Orion, just below the Eastern-most of the three stars that comprise Orion’s belt. As well as being the brightest, M42 is perhaps the most famous and most photographed nebula in the night sky.
