At what time of year is the Milky Way visible an hour or so after sunset? And any advice (other than the obvious be someplace away from interfering city lights) for getting the best view?
(And yes I know it’s always visible because we’re in it. I mean for seeing a spectacular swatch across the sky.)
Hi
Roughly late Feb for the winter milky way, then 6 months later for the summer milky way which is much more spectacular IMO. Without better references handy thats the best i can do at the moment.
What big city do you live near. Maybe we could give you some good pointers on where to escape the city lights. People REALLY underestimate the importance of this and how HARD it is anymore to actually do.
Having said that, when you can really SEE the milky way like its meant to be seen, its something that will stick with you the rest of your life. It literally looks like a milky river across the sky.
It’s not just your opinion that the summer Milky Way is more spectacular, billfish678. It’s thickest and densest in the approximate direction of Saggitarius, a summer constellation. The best viewing will be some time near midnight (true midnight, which will be somewhere between 12:30 and 1:30 by the clock, if you’re on daylight saving time) in July.
It’s even better if you have a pair of binoculars: That portion of the sky is so thick with open clusters, nebulae, and other deep-sky objects that you can find several just by randomly sweeping around near Saggitarius.
Fascinating links. It appears to be almost impossible to get a good look at the sky from the eastern half of the continental US. That makes me sad for millions of kids that have no idea what the sky actually looks like.
I’m also somewhat surprised to see that I live in a purple area instead of totally dark. I can usually see the Milky Way pretty clearly in the summer.
It’s hard to explain the wonder and awe of the night sky to someone who looks up and maybe spots three or five stars (or planets) at most. Maybe there’d be more interest in astronomy and less in astrology if people really could see the skies as they really are.
The best I’ve ever seen was on Haleakala Volcano on Maui. At first I was thinking, “Damn, I can’t see the Milky Way because of that cloud across the sky . . . oh wait.”
A lot of people were taking pictures of it . . . with flash. 
Yep. Only on moving to the UK did I realise what a privilege it was growing up in rural NZ, with dark, clear skies and the glory of the Milky Way across the night.
That said, I didn’t appreciate how visible and distinctive the constellations of the zodiac really were until I moved to the Northern hemisphere. They are upside down and hidden on the horizon in the south, so they got ignored. The only guidance I ever needed from the stars was provided by the Southern Cross and the pointers, which can be used to indicate South (no polar star in the Southern Sky).
Si
Funny thing is, skies that are too dark can be a problem navigation wise. Even many experienced amatuer astronomers get “lost” in skies darker than they what they are used too.
Has happened to me many times as well.
Dark skies are more difficult to find all the time, but fortunately here in the West, many more good locations. And, if you ever climb high mountains in places like the Sierra, above 10K feet, you will be amazed at how bright all celestial objects are. Even at the Grand Canyon, the skies are astonishing.
BTW, not only at what time of year is important, but also what time of the month. Avoid the damn moon like the plague! Astronomers would be happier if the moon never rose. 
In fairness, the Moon can be an interesting target in its own right.
And climbing mountains is good, but only to a point. When you start getting low on oxygen, one of the first symptoms is that your visual sensitivity decreases. I’ve heard that from the very top of the Hawaiian volcanoes, the naked-eye view is actually no better than from the suburbs of a typical city… Until you take a breath from your oxygen bottle, and the heavens open up.
IIRC you have to keep it somewhere under 10,000 feet to have enough ambient oxygen to not loose too much low level light sensitivity. And if you are used to near sea level oxygen levels its probably lower than that.
Another thing many forget is that it can literally take an hour or more with NO exposure to anything brighter than the sky itself to get truelly dark adapted.
Jumping outa the car after a drive in the country and waiting a few minutes just aint gonna cut it. More like 45 minutes in near total darkness minimum.
Oh, come on. Mauna Loa is only 13.7k feet high, just a bit over half the height of Everest above sea level. There’s plenty of oxygen up there, though its easy to feel winded. But oxygen bottles?
I actually saw it this past summer on a clear night around optimal viewing time – right in the city, too, with all of the attendant light pollution, which should tell you how spectacular it is if you can get to a dark area. Even with the light pollution it was an incredible sight to behold; the milky swath across the sky with bands of cosmic dust lanes stretching from one horizon to the other is quite amazing. I’d love to get out to a dark area and take a deep exposure shot through a telescope, but tracking scopes are pricey.
Great for you.
But unless that city was Hooterville, you aint seen nutin yet 
That high enough that astronomers and workers there have a hard time thinking, so yes that is TOO high.
Years ago, a famous amatuer known for very good vision found he was most sensitive WAY below the peak of Mauna Loa.
opps
forgot this.
The milky way is best seen naked eye or maybe lowww power large aperture binoculars.
The most important thing to see it are DARK skies.
Some forty years ago in a field exercise at Fort Riley, Kansas, toward the end of July my platoon stood down at One or Two in the morning. Everyone was pretty well done in so we just bagged out in the field, ponchos and green blankets, on the open prairie. Not a light to be seen. The sky, the Milky Way stretching from on horizon to the other, was just spectacular. Because of light pollution I don’t suppose I ever see that again.
Isn’t it also true that one can see the Milky Way better from the southern hemisphere than from the northern hemisphere?
Probably; Sag is rather below the celestial equator. Plus, you can then also see what appears to be two detached pieces of it, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.