2.9 KiB
| name | created_by | created_date | updated_by | updated_date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aquila | skybber | 2021-06-01 19:57:14.885829 | skybber | 2022-02-11 18:34:30.603236 |
A prominent constellation situated on the celestial equator, in the Milky Way region, divided in two by the Great Rift, lying in the sky to the south below the Cygnus, the Sagitta and the Vulpecula. The Milky Way, stretching through the northern and western parts of the constellation, is rich in stars in this region, overlaid in some places with dark clouds of gas and dust, and during summer nights it becomes a favorite walk for stargazers with binoculars. The brightest shining star is the blue-white star Altair, which, along with the stars Vega of the constellation Lyra and Deneb of the Cygnus, forms the Summer Landmark Triangle. The constellation contains no prominent deep-sky objects, but there are a number of fainter and smaller planets and dark nebulae, the most famous of which is the so-called Dark Spot in Eagle. This exceptionally dark dust cloud is found one and a half degrees from gamma Aquilae, the northern part of which is usually referred to in atlases as Barnard 143, the southern part being Barnard 142. In the binocular it appears as a starless "E" shaped region really leaving a strong impression of an opaque substance placed between the observer and the distant stars.
Visually, the Milky Way in Eagle leaves the impression that it is riddled with gas and dust clouds of the Great Rift, not equally bright in every place, containing stellar clouds, conspicuous patches of random nearby faint stars, and dark nebulae that cut into the Milky Way to form its shape . The first slight brightening is in the mainstream east of the star 23 Aql, roughly where the Milky Way crosses the level of the celestial equator. To the west of Altair, a bright elongated belt appears again, converging into the constellation of the Arrow. About 2/3 of the distance from above, it has another brightening and a circular (but less prominent) one west of the star Mu Aql.
If you go for a walk with a binocular in the Milky Way during summer nights, you may be surprised to find virtually no interesting open clusters in the vast and otherwise distinctive constellation of Eagle. This part of the sky is the area between the Orion and Sagittarius arms, so there are only very close or very distant and even fainter stars, but they are reliably obscured by the dark clouds of the Great Rift, a complex of dust in our arm located along the galactic equator. The narrowest, with sharp boundaries, is in the Swan, while the widest is between Eagle and Hadonos, and it curves slightly to the west. In this place it is much closer to us - only 1,500 light years, while in Labuti it is thousands of light years away. Because the chain of dark nebulae is slightly inclined relative to the plane of our Galaxy, the Milky Way is brighter in Eagle to the southeast of the Great Rift, while it is brighter in Labute to the northwest.