4 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Ask Anything Wednesday - Physics, Astronomy, Earth and Planetary Science
Most of the visible stars in the night sky are pretty close to earth relative to the size of the milky way galaxy, and are also spread out in three dimensions rather than on a plane.
But here's a map of the nearest 50 light years
http://www.icc.dur.ac.uk/~tt/Lectures/Galaxies/LocalGroup/Back/50lys.html
Most of the stars we can see at night are within a couple hundred light years.
Note for context that the galaxy is 100,000 light-years across and one to a few thousand light years thick (depending on what you are counting)
Comment by tdellaringa at 26/04/2023 at 19:42 UTC
1 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Thank you! I have actually seen this before. If I read this right, 31aql (furthest toward GC at 45 degrees) is basically 50 LY away from the Sun. This is actually for my book series - I am just trying to solve for a basic galactic map (I'm using the milky way, but it's fictional)
Because I'm using a larger part of the galaxy, I'm having a hard time mapping out bigger distances - like say from Earth to NGC 5946. Is there a resource that is larger - at the galactic scale vs. just 50 LY that shows the same sort of view?
Are the concentric circles the best way to show this? Appreciate any insight you have.