NavList:

David P:
Your idea using the tilt of the Milky Way is very clever. That should work. The catch is that we're on the wrong side of the Milky Way!

The center of the Milky Way (the famous giant black hole ...lurking out there ...completely hidden by interstelllar dust) is right off the spout of the teapot in Sagittarius. That's galactic longitude 0° and galactic latitude 0°. For a big hint, that very bright star toward the lower right in this photo, just above the cross on that little church, is about 8° from the galactic equator and at galactic longitude 227° or so. So, like I say, the wrong side of the sky entirely. That star is about 47° from the spot directly away from the galactic center.

A related hint for everyone: that very bright star toward the lower right in the photo is a very bright star. And what easy trick do we use to find that very bright star? I used it just an hour ago through scudding clouds in early twilight this evening. :)

I noticed earlier today that a copy of the image reduced in size actually eliminated many of the faint stars and got rid of that "stardust" problem to some extent. Look at this version, attached below. Can you make out the key constellation now?

Frank Reed

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