The Milky Way and night sky near Tabuk – Record by Viv Wilson

Viv Wilson has sent me a couple of his excellent night sky photos taken during a trip to the desert near Tabuk. Viv’s photos are shown below and he has given me permission to use them on my website. As I know nothing about the night sky Viv has also sent me details of some of the stars to be seen in the photos for which I thank him very much. The Milky Way shot contains the main constellations of Scorpius, the scorpion which contains the red star Antares, the rival of mars. It is the 15th brightest star. Greek mythology has it that Orion was killed by the scorpion and is still running away from it, in the heavens. Sagittarius, the archer. The Greeks believe the constellation represents both a Centaur and the archer, Crotus, a great marksman. It contains the globular cluster, M22. The lagoon and Omega nebula and Barnards Galaxy. Ophiuchus was one of the 48 constellations recorded by Ptolemy in the second century AD. It is a zodiacal constellation, but not one of the astrological signs. In Greek mythology it represents the healer, Asclepius and translates to "he who holds the serpent". Serpens in ancient Greece, snakes were revered as symbols of rebirth, in part due to how they shed their skin. They were viewed as having poison with both venomous and healing properties. It contains the globular cluster of M5, M16 and the Eagle Nebular and the 'Pillars of Foundation". Scutum is a small summer constellation. It was named by Johannes Hevelius in 1684.It was named after King John III Sobieski of Poland, who led an allied resistance to victory over the invading forces of the Ottoman Empire in 1683. The Wild Duck cluster M11 is located here. Also the planet Saturn is lurking just to the right of the red star, Antares.

The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains our Solar System. Its name "milky" is derived from its appearance as a dim glowing band arching across the night sky whose individual stars cannot be distinguished by the naked eye. The term "Milky Way" is a translation of the Latin via lactea, from the Greek γαλαξίας κύκλος (galaxías kýklos, "milky circle"). From Earth the Milky Way appears as a band because its disk-shaped structure is viewed from within. Galileo Galilei first resolved the band of light into individual stars with his telescope in 1610. Until the early 1920s most astronomers thought that the Milky Way contained all the stars in the Universe. Following the 1920 Great Debate between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis, observations by Edwin Hubble showed that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies—now known to be billions.

The Milky Way from Tabuk – Photos by Viv Wilson

Viv Wilson sent me a couple of beautiful images of the Milky Way he had taken in Tabuk recently and has kindly allowed me to use them on my website. Please be aware the copyright of these photos belongs to Viv Wilson. Viv said the photo was taken towards the south and the black lines are dust lines. There is a meteor in each photo as well as a couple of satellites. The photos contain Scorpio, Sagittarius and Aquila and were taken with a Canon 6D and a Samyang 14mm 2.8 lens at 30 seconds with ISO8000. One of the good things about living in Saudi Arabia is light pollution is low as the landmass is large and population relatively small, which allows good views of the stars. The Milky Way is a large spiral galaxy with the Sun and its planets including Earth lying in a quiet part of the galaxy, about half way out from the centre. The Milky Way spiral rotates once every 230 million years and is made up of at least 100 billion stars, as well as dust and gas. It is so big that light takes 100 000 years to cross from one side to the other. Unlike a regular spiral, the Milky Way is a barred spiral and contains a bar across its center region, and has two major arms, two significant minor arms, as well as two smaller spurs. One of the spurs, known as the Orion Arm, contains the sun and the solar system. The Orion arm is located between two major arms, Perseus and Sagittarius. Tucked inside the very center of the galaxy, like most galaxys is an enormous black hole that consumes whatever stars it can. The Milky Way contains over 200 billion stars, and enough dust and gas to make billions more with more than half the stars found in the Milky Way being older than the 4.5 billion year old sun.