Spring Milky Way Arch

Description

Spring Milky Way Arch
A night spent on the summit of Helvellyn watching the stars above.  This, a panorama made up from over 30 separate photographs showing the spring Milky Way arch high in the skies above the Lake District.  To the left, above Scafell & Scafell Pike you can see the constellation of Orion, also known as The Hunter.  In Orion we have stars such as Betelgeuse, the 9^th brightest star in the sky, a supermassive red giant 750 times the mass of our sun, Alnitak (where the Horsehead & Flame Nebula are located) and Rigel, the 7^th brightest star and a Blue Supergiant Star 864.3 light years away.  To the left of Orion, you can see Sirius, the brightest star in the sky and part of the constellation Canis Major.
To the right of Orion, Taurus (The Bull) can be seen with the star Aldebaran and then the Pleiades Cluster, also known as The Seven Sisters.
Above my tent, two galaxies can be seen in the constellations of Triangulum and Andromeda.  The Triangulum galaxy lies 2.73 million light years from us on Earth and contains 40 billion stars.  To the right of this our sister galaxy Andromeda can be seen.  Andromeda is the most distant object visible to the naked eye that’s not in our galaxy and lies 2.537 million light years away.  It’s a massive galaxy, 2-3 times larger than our own and is made up of around a Trillion stars.  Currently our two galaxies are hurtling towards each other at 300,000 miles per hour, set to collide in 3.4-4.5 billion years!
Above these, the Double Cluster can be seen and to the right of this Cassiopeia (the mother of Andromeda) and then as the Milky Way arch arches down below the horizon Cygnus (the swan) can be seen.

Why not come and see this photo and others like it plus over 20 local Lake District artists at our gallery

The Bridge Gallery
46 Market Place
Cockermouth
CA139NG

We’re open Tuesday to Saturday 10am – 5pm