Brightest Objects in the Night Sky to Observe:

Starlink satellites create a line of bright lights in night sky, causing a stir. In the Milwaukee area and other parts of Wisconsin, they were visible just before 10 p.m. Friday, a string of at least 50 of them almost equidistant apart, cruising in a line across the night sky and looking like stars.

They are lit solely by the reflection of sunlight from solar panels or other surfaces. A satellite’s brightness sometimes changes as it moves across the sky. Because reflected sunlight is necessary to see satellites, the best viewing times are for a few hours immediately after nightfall and a few hours before dawn.

• The Moon (seriously bright!)
• Venus (magnitude -4.3)
• Jupiter (magnitude -2.2)
• Sirius (magnitude -1.4)
• Mars (magnitude -1.2)
• Mercury (see below)
• Canopus (south of latitude 37°N)

List

There is an easy way to get above all that air – go to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. Here, in one of the driest, highest and clearest skies in the world is the small town of San Pedro de Atacama.

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory

Yes, it can. The Milky Way is visible to the naked eye but you have to see it from a dark sky area away from any light pollution.

Before electricity, the night sky had great contrast between the stars and the sky – the sky was black and very dim stars were easy to see, the Milky Way was obvious. You can find out for yourself because there are still some places far from cities and their resulting Light Pollution.

Putting aside the curvature of the Earth and refraction and terrain and so forth, we can say that at any moment, half the sky is available to view. Over the course of 24 hours, the percentage of the entire celestial sphere that’s available to view varies from 50% (at the poles) to 100% (at the equator).

The combination of all the streetlights, spotlights, and building lights work together to fade our night sky. The more light pollution there is, the less black the night appears – the sky will only darken to a gray – and the more light pollution, the fewer stars are visible.

Moonlight. Natural moonlight washes out the light from most stars leaving only the brightest visible. This is most noticeable around the time of the full-Moon — when the Moon is at its brightest only a few stars can be seen.

The best time to go stargazing are the days before and after each new Moon and autumn and spring are especially popular. Light pollution makes it difficult to see things in the night sky and the Moon is the brightest thing up there. But bright moonlight is absent from the sky the days before and after a new Moon.

Generally, the best time of day to see the Milky Way is between 00:00 and 5:00 on nights with a new moon during the Milky Way season.

The Milky Way is only highly visible in the northern hemisphere during February to around September. Take into consideration which phase the moon currently is in. During a full moon you won’t be able to capture any of the Milky Way due to the reflective sun light washing out the night sky.

10 of the Best Places in the U.S. to See the Milky Way

• Big Bend National Park, Texas.
• Death Valley National Park, Nevada.
• Clayton Lake State Park, New Mexico.
• Cherry Springs State Park, Pennsylvania.
• Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.
• Capital Reef National Park, Utah.
• Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
• Big Pine Key, Florida.

To see the Milky Way at night, you need all three of the following:

1. a clear sky – there should be no clouds;
2. minimal light pollution – too much extra light washes out the details in the night sky; and.
3. no moon – the moon is brighter than you think and will reduce the visible intensity of the Milky Way.

Which parts you can see depend on your location on Earth and the time of year, but you can always see some part of the disk. The galactic core of the Milky Way is located in the constellation Sagittarius, which is located to the South of me in Canada, and only really visible during the Summer.