The Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, or Orion Complex is located in and around Orion. The most active region can be found between Orion’s belt and sword. This is a good star gazing destination because it is easy to locate and the winter night sky is great for observing because of it’s clarity.
It’s time to pull out the star charts and take a look at the winter constellations in the Northern Hemisphere. The winter sky is dominated by the awesome constellation, Orion and Orion can be used as the starting point for your winter constellation observing.
I know you’ve all been thinking it! The Solar System is in a really boring part of the Milky Way Galaxy. We are marooned out here in one of the remote (some may say back water) areas of the Orion Spiral Arm about 20 degrees above the galactic plane and about 28,000 light years from the center of the galaxy.
Imagine dropping out of hyperlight flight five light years and slightly above the galactic plane of the Sombrero Galaxy. Would the bridge of your interstellar voyager be bathed in the immense stellar glow of this beautiful galaxy? What a sight that would be. As mentioned in earlier posts, this galaxy is very photogenic and is can be easily seen by the amateur astronomer.
Well Outer Space Universe Fans….I told you I would stay on this one until we found out the truth about the LCROSS lunar impact event held on October 9, 2009. The results are in and there is evidence of water on the Moon! Scientists have verified that the debris plume (which was not visible to me on the day of impact) did, in fact, contain about 25 gallons of water.