AAT image of the Center of the Milky Way
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
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
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More information on this image
by David Malin - Old style AAT image
Last Modification: 19 Apr 16:30 MET