Milky Way will be visible over Memorial Day weekend. Where to see our galaxy from Ohio
The Milky Way could be coming to a sky near you.
The billions of stars comprising our home galaxy should appear especially vibrant in late May as the band arcs across the night sky. The reason has much to do with the cycle of the moon, but it also has to do with how high in the sky the Milky Way should appear from our perspective here on Earth, specifically in the United States.
Here's everything to know about our Milky Way, including how to see the stunning natural phenomenon and the best places to see it from Ohio.
While the Milky Way is generally always visible from Earth, certain times of year are better for stargazers to catch a glimpse of the band of billions of stars comprising our galaxy.
"Milky Way season," when the galaxy's bright center becomes easier to see from Earth, typically runs from February to October, according to Milky Way photography website Capture the Atlas. However, the best time to see the Milky Way in the Northern Hemisphere is from March to September.
And for several days in May, the Milky Way may be even more visible than usual.
The peak days to view the Milky Way will be from Tuesday, May 20, to Friday, May 30, according to science news website LiveScience. That's the period between the last quarter moon and the new moon, when skies should be darker.
Those who live in the Northern Hemisphere, which includes the entire continental United States, could have spectacular views of the Milky Way on clear nights with a new moon.
Typically, the sky is darkest between about midnight and 5 a.m., according to Capture the Atlas.
Stargazers can observe the Milky Way galaxy by looking for the Summer Triangle, "a shape formed by three bright stars" that spans across the Milky Way, according to LiveScience.com.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the Milky Way rises in the southeast, travels across the southern sky and sets in the southwest, according to Weather.com.
Spectators will have the best luck on cloud-free nights and in locations away from city light pollution. DarkSky International maintains a website that lists all designated dark sky communities around the world, including 159 locations in the U.S.
So where's the best place to go in Ohio to see the Milky Way shining overhead? The International Dark Sky Places (ISDP) program, an internationally recognized organization that certifies communities, parks and protected areas around the world that preserve dark skies, has two suggestions. The IDSP-designated dark sky places in Ohio are:
Geauga Observatory Park: Located in Montville Township in Geauga County, this park was selected as a dark sky park in 2011, the Columbus Dispatch reports. The park is centered around the Nassau Observatory, which moved from Cleveland to Geauga County in 1957 due to light pollution. It fell out of routine use in the 1990s.
Fry Family Park: Located in Magnolia, about 10 miles south of Canton, the park also earned the distinction of being an IDSP-certified urban dark sky area, which means stargazers still get a good view of the night sky despite its proximity to a city.
Other dark sky destinations around Ohio, according to Ohio Magazine, include:
Burr Oak State Park: The nearest village is four miles away, and has a population of less than 2,000 so it produces little light pollution.
Stonelick State Park: The night skies here are some of the darkest in Ohio, according to the magazine, and it's a common destination for Cincinnati-area stargazers.
Wayne National Forest: Per the magazine, the isolated Lamping Homestead Recreation Area is arguably the darkest site in Ohio's only national forest.
Timing up your viewing experience with a new moon phase will also help so that light reflected off our celestial neighbor doesn't drown out the billions of stars lighting up the Milky Way, astronomers say.
Just like Earth, half of the moon is always illuminated by the sun, while the other half remains dark. A new moon represents the start of a new lunar cycle, when the illuminated side of Earth's natural satellite is facing away from our planet, rendering it effectively invisible to us.
As the moon orbits around Earth and Earth orbits around the sun, the amount of sunlight that reflects off the moon and travels to our eyes changes every day until the moon appears full.
The next new moon happens late in the evening on Monday, May 26 (Memorial Day), according to the website TimeAndDate.
The Milky Way is our home galaxy with a disc of stars that spans more than 100,000 light-years. Because it appears as a rotating disc curving out from a dense central region, the Milky Way is known as a spiral galaxy.
Our planet itself is located along one of the galaxy's spiral arms, about halfway from the center, according to NASA.
The Milky Way sits in a cosmic neighborhood called the Local Group that includes more than 50 other galaxies. Those galaxies can be as small as a dwarf galaxy with up to only a few billion stars, or as large as Andromeda, our nearest large galactic neighbor.
The Milky Way got its name because, from our perspective on Earth, it appears as a faint band of white light stretching across the entire sky.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Milky Way visible from Earth? How to watch in Ohio Memorial Day weekend
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