# What stars are we looking at in these awesome photos? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 18, 2012, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088 "2012-10-18T02:03:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2012, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/41 "2012-10-20T10:57:46Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > … driving down to my parents, **faffing** around in my car … > [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > 😕 I have no idea what that verb means. I hope it is socially benign. > [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > In common with many verbs, it can be either. It’s a piece of British slang, it means to waste time or do something inefficiently. In the context above, I mean the latter, while getting my things together. British slang?? 😕 We used it in Texas when I was growing up. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2012, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/42 "2012-10-20T11:14:18Z")
> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > On a beach on Fraser Island which is a big island that sticks out of the east coast of Australia with hardly any buildings and certainly no street lighting (no streets in fact just a few dirt tracks leading to beautiful lakes). I was on the east side as well so I was well into Pacific when I looked up in wonder at the millions of stars. I remember being annoyed by a very thin cloud above me that only the strongest stars could shine through, especially as I hadn’t seen a single cloud in the sky for days. After about 2 minutes of waiting for the cloud to blow over it suddenly dawned on me… that was no cloud. > > Awesome. And how were the Magellanic Clouds? (Not really clouds, they’re similar to the Milky Way in that they are millions of stars which are visible from rural places…in this case, in the Southern Hemisphere. But the difference is that the “Milky Way” is another band of our own galaxy – just as all the other stars we see are even closer neighbors in it – while the Magellanic Clouds are separate galaxies altogether – smaller companions in our Local Group of galaxies. The only other thing beyond our galaxy you can see with the naked eye is the Andromeda Galaxy, between Casseiopia and the Square of Pegasus – I see it as a faint smudge on dark nights, even sometimes from suburban locations.) ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2012, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/43 "2012-10-20T11:48:10Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > British slang?? 😕 We used it in Texas when I was growing up. Words travel for free. According to [this](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-faf1.htm), it originated in Scotland and Northern England. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2012, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/44 "2012-10-20T21:14:55Z")
The dark band in those images is perhaps the most intriguing part of the image; a series of dark molecular clouds, about 800 light years away, the densest part of which is in the constellation Aquila and is known as the Aquila Rift. This useful webpage has some interesting graphics of the Milky Way [http://media.skysurvey.org/interactive360/index.html](http://media.skysurvey.org/interactive360/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2012, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/45 "2012-10-20T22:21:29Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > The dark band in those images is perhaps the most intriguing part of the image; a series of dark molecular clouds, about 800 light years away, the densest part of which is in the constellation Aquila and is known as the Aquila Rift. > > This useful webpage has some interesting graphics of the Milky Way > [Photopic Sky Survey](http://media.skysurvey.org/interactive360/index.html) What’s a “molecular cloud” made of? (I know, Google Is My Friend, but I like hearing it from you folks.) ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2012, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/46 "2012-10-20T22:32:34Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > No, but the word “galaxy” is derived from the Greek word for milk. You can hear the etymology in related words like “lactose”. Latin, actually. In Latin it’s _Via Lactia_, which literally means “Milky Way”. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/47 "2012-10-21T00:34:59Z")
True, but the word in Latin is closely related to the word in Greek – not just because they’re both IE languages, but I think it’s even a later borrowing than the proto-Greek/proto-Italic splitting. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/48 "2012-10-21T04:07:35Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > I’ve posted this [photo](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3536/3756048883_f0c2e041b1_b.jpg) before. > I took it on the road between Naples and Ft. Lauderdale, FL. The orange glow is Miami, around 80 miles away. Fantastic shot: echo (mushroom cloud light) of urban maelstrom, to reclamation by the placid earth, to supersumption by the stars. Do i have your permission to download it? > [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > … > Also, obligatory for beauty’s sake (I didn’t have the heart to excise the continuation), from Ulysses: > > With what meditations did Bloom accompany his demonstration to his companion of various constellations? > > Meditations of evolution increasingly vaster: of the moon invisible in incipent lunation, approaching perigee: of the infinite lattiginous scintillating uncondensed milky way, _discernible by daylight by an observer placed at the lower end of a cylindrical vertical shaft 5000 ft deep sunk from the surface towards the centre of the earth_: … Anyone want to take a crack at checking the italicized part? > [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > On a beach on Fraser Island which is a big island that sticks out of the east coast of Australia with hardly any buildings and certainly no street lighting (no streets in fact just a few dirt tracks leading to beautiful lakes). I was on the east side as well so I was well into Pacific when I looked up in wonder at the millions of stars. I remember being annoyed by a very thin cloud above me that only the strongest stars could shine through, especially as I hadn’t seen a single cloud in the sky for days. After about 2 minutes of waiting for the cloud to blow over it suddenly dawned on me… that was no cloud. > > Awesome. Epiphany of an event. Other similar examples of cognition/sudden lifting of a screen of thought or misinterpretation are few, but can be shockingly profound. I once put on Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, which as some of you may know begins with almost imperceptible open fifths, in a mysteriously uncoalescent harmonic space. As I lay back and entered the exploratory zone of my own immersion and creation of (and along with) that space, feeling with my ears the borders of that entrance, I realized after a time that I hadn’t turned on the amplifier and no sound was present. I think that might be similar. > [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > In common with many verbs, it can be either. It’s a piece of British slang, it means to waste time or do something inefficiently. In the context above, I mean the latter, while getting my things together. In New York City, many people–not just Jews–say “futzing around” with exactly the same connotations. Not “putzing around,” which sometimes non-Jews say in getting at the same word/point, which is not, despite it’s literal meaning that sounds akin to English–“cocking/dicking around”–is weird and never existed. Nice to know about faff. Now if I only knew what that meant literally, just for laughs. Also futz, come to think of it. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/49 "2012-10-21T04:16:06Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Fantastic shot: echo (mushroom cloud light) of urban maelstrom, to reclamation by the placid earth, to supersumption by the stars. Do i have your permission to download it? Sure. I can send you a higher-resolution version if you PM me with your email address. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/50 "2012-10-21T11:09:51Z")
A molecular cloud is a mass of gas and dust, light years across, with H2 (molecular hydrogen) as the most common molecule, bur also rich in CO (carbon monoxide) and many other molecules, including many organic molecules. The large molecules are rare in these clouds but detectable; the most easily detectable is the CO molecule, which is used as a marker for the extent of these clouds (although TBH I don’t know how quite they do this). Molecular clouds are also rich in cosmic dust, and are dark and opaque in visible light. However they are much less opaque in infra-red; here’s a small one (Barnard 68) seen in several different wavelengths, showing how infra-red can pass through. > **[The dark cloud B68 at different wavelengths](https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso9934b/)** > > The dark cloud B68 at different wavelengths But that is a very small cloud compared to the Aquila rift, which is pretty much impenetrable even to infra-red. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/51 "2012-10-21T11:50:15Z")
Thank you, eburacum! Leo – futz literally means “fart”. (Or am I being whooshed, and you knew that “fuff” means that as well – if indeed it dies literally mean that?) ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/52 "2012-10-22T04:05:25Z")
I get it, now that you mention it. A friend’s father (an Austrian Jew, if that makes a difference) taught me this when I was fifteen: Schiller sagt zu Goethe, Dein pfärtz ist wie ein flöte Goethe sagt zu Schiller, Dein pfärtz ist wie ein triller ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/53 "2012-10-22T09:29:55Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I get it, now that you mention it. > > A friend’s father (an Austrian Jew, if that makes a difference) taught me this when I was fifteen: > > Schiller sagt zu Goethe, > Dein pfärtz ist wie ein flöte > > Goethe sagt zu Schiller, > Dein pfärtz ist wie ein triller “Your fart’s like a flute… Your fart’s like a Southeast Asian bird related to the cuckoo.”?? ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/54 "2012-10-22T11:05:00Z")
It’s amazing how many people in this thread say they have never or rarely seen the Milky Way. I live in the densely populated southeast of England, which is hardly Dark Sky central, and I can usually see it on a clear night. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/55 "2012-11-15T11:26:06Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Perhaps if I could see a star atlas/big-ass exploded photo of the Milky Way, with a you-are-here, and you-are-looking-this-way arrow, at differing granularities, I could figure it out. Here you go, [this](http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/stars/) is the best 3D map of the milky way I’ve ever seen. Try zooming all the way in and all the way out. It’s an accurate map of the 100,000 nearest stars to us, embedded in a rough map of the whole Milky Way. The play button top left gives a tour. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/56 "2012-11-15T18:36:33Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > Here you go, [this](http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/stars/) is the best 3D map of the milky way I’ve ever seen. Try zooming all the way in and all the way out. It’s an accurate map of the 100,000 nearest stars to us, embedded in a rough map of the whole Milky Way. The play button top left gives a tour. I love it… and it has probably the best “patience” message I’ve ever seen: “Loading the galaxy – please wait” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/57 "2012-11-15T20:46:18Z")
I’m stunned. Talk about “make a wish.” ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2015, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/58 "2015-11-28T18:22:13Z")
I remember this thread fondly for, among other things, the SD posted repeatedly and patiently for me on interpreting the “you are here” issues. Just found this, which if I checked right wasn’t cited above: Wiki “Earth’s Location in the Universe”: > **[Location of Earth](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_location_in_the_universe)** > > Knowledge of the location of Earth has been shaped by 400 years of telescopic observations, and has expanded radically since the start of the 20th century. Initially, Earth was believed to be the center of the Universe, > which consisted only of those planets visible with the naked eye and an outlying sphere of fixed stars. After the acceptance of the heliocentric model in the 17th century, observations by William Herschel and others showed that the Sun lay within a vast, disc-shaped galaxy of s A lot of fun stuff in there. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2015, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/59 "2015-11-28T18:28:27Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > “Your fart’s like a flute… Your fart’s like a Southeast Asian bird related to the cuckoo.”?? Just saw **JKellyMap** has gone three years in a cloud of unknowing. A “triller” is the German word for “trill,” in music a rapid alternation of two step-separated notes. Unless this the first case I’ve ever seen of a zombie being whooshed. Not a pretty sight. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2015, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088/60 "2015-11-29T18:08:41Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > . > Thanks. I’m only familiar with burning attack ships in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. An almost inconceivable sight. You should have seen the attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-stars-are-we-looking-at-in-these-awesome-photos/638088.md?page=2)