If you view saggitarius, say with binoculars, could you actually see a cluster of stars possibly....?

Question

representing the galactic center?

I think it would be cool just to see a haze. Anthing that tells me, yea, that's the center. Seeing that would be amazing.

Answer 1

What you will see is a region of amorphous glowing haze. Your view is severely obscured by gas and dust. It really doesn't look much different than looking in some other parts of the Milky Way. It is one of my favorite parts of the sky to aim my telescope, even with the poor altitude. Lots of clusters and a few nebulae. Two of them are so close together, you can see them both in one low power telescopic field. Might be tough with ordinary binoculars, though.

If there was no gas or dust, you could clearly tell where the center was, being at the middle of the central bulge. But there would be so many stars between us and the center that the intervening starlight would block your view of the actual center.

Laura, I'd love to come down to the southern hemisphere once, so I could see things like that. You get to see Sagittarius much higher in the sky than I can up here at 38 degrees north. Yeah, I'll bet the view is spectacular with that higher angle and less light pollution. You get to see it almost straight overhead in NSW! ...Orion, too.

Answer 2

From southern hemisphere locations the shape of the galaxy is obvious when Sagittarius is overhead.

You can't see the centre of the galaxy per se in binoculars, but you are still looking at a very rich part of the sky, with lots of clusters and nebulae. The view in binoculars is spectacular.

Addendum: Even if it's only once, every astronomer should visit the southern hemisphere. Yes, you can see lots of goodies from tropical northern hemisphere locations; I'm going to Costa Rica in February and will gorge myself on the Centaurus/Carina Milky Way. But for the full effect, you really need to go much further south. I had my first good view of the Eta Carinae region from St. Kilda Beach in Melbourne. With binoculars. Things got even better out in the bush.

The first night I looked at Scorpius from Coonabarabran I couldn't find it. Because it was overhead. :-)

Answer 3

The actual vicinity of Sagittarius A* is obscured by dust and is only visible in the infrared. However, because you are looking toward the central region of the galaxy, you will see a rich assortment of clusters and nebulae. It's a fascinating region of the sky in binoculars or telescope, especially if you can get away from urban light pollution.

Answer 4

When you look at Sagittarius you are looking towards the galactic centre, but what you are actually seeing is the next spiral arm inwards, the Sagittarius Arm. There is one spot, the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud (M24) where there is actually a hole in the Sagittarius Arm, and you can catch a glimpse of the next arm inward, the Norma Arm. But still nowhere close to the centre. That's what we get for living in the boonies!

Answer 5

*lol* - Finding 26 degrees Sagittarius in the night sky would be difficult. That's 24800 Light Years Away!!!