The midwinter Milky Way

Seeing the misty, mottled arch of the Milky Way spanning the sky late on a clear summer night is one of the most enjoyable and memorable experiences for astronomers. It’s right up there with your first view of Saturn’s rings through a telescope and seeing a bright fireball skip and flare across the sky during a meteor shower. But why discuss the Milky Way at this time of year? Everyone knows that you can only see the Milky Way during the summer – that it’s a ‘summer sight’, right?

Wrong. The Milky Way is still there on these frosty winter nights, it’s just not as dramatic or obvious. While the summer Milky Way is a naked-eye wonder, a broad trail of starry froth and foam that splits the sky in two, the winter Milky Way is not so obvious and more of a spectacle to seek out. It’s dappled on the sky, and if you take the