2.8 KiB
| name | created_by | created_date | updated_by | updated_date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aquila | skybber | 2021-06-01 19:57:14.885829 | skybber | 2023-12-20 09:05:46.174998 |
The prominent constellation traversing the celestial equator, divided into two parts by the Great Rift within the Milky Way, lies in the southern sky beneath Cygnus, Sagitta, and Vulpecula. The northern and western sections of the constellation are rich in stars, some areas overlaid by dark clouds of gas and dust, making it a popular stroll for observers with binoculars on summer nights. The brightest star, shining with a blue-white light, is Altair, forming the Summer Triangle with Vega in Lyra and Deneb in Cygnus. The constellation lacks any prominent deep-sky objects, but it hosts numerous fainter and smaller planetary and dark nebulae, with the most famous being the Dark Rift in Aquila. This exceptionally dark dust cloud is found about one and a half degrees from Gamma Aquilae, with its northern part designated as Barnard 143 in atlases, and the southern part represented by Barnard 142. When viewed through binoculars, they appear as starless areas forming the shape of the letter "E," creating a strong impression of opaque material between the observer and distant stars.
The Milky Way in Aquila visually gives the impression of being threaded with gas and dust clouds from the Great Rift, not equally bright everywhere. It contains star clouds, noticeable patches of randomly scattered faint stars, and dark nebulae cutting into and shaping its form. The first slight brightening occurs in the main stream east of the star 23 Aquilae, roughly where the Milky Way intersects the celestial equator. West of Altair, a bright elongated band emerges, extending into the Sagitta constellation. About two-thirds of the distance from the top, another brightening appears, along with a circular (but less noticeable) one west of the star Mu Aquilae.
During summer nights, if you take a stroll with binoculars along the Milky Way, you may be surprised that in the extensive and otherwise prominent constellation of Aquila, you will find practically no interesting open star clusters. This part of the sky consists mainly of the region between Orion's arm and Sagittarius, with very close or, conversely, very distant and faint stars that reliably obscure the dark clouds of the Great Rift, a complex of dust in our arm along the galactic equator. The narrowest section, with sharp borders, is in Cygnus, while the widest is between Aquila and Ophiuchus, slightly veering westward. At this point, it is much closer to us—only 1,500 light-years—while in Cygnus, it extends to thousands of light-years. As the chain of dark nebulae is slightly inclined to the plane of our galaxy, the Milky Way is brighter in the southeast of the Great Rift in Aquila, while in Cygnus, it is in the northwest.