Navigating the Milky Way

The Milky Way, looking like a river of stars and dust, stretches between the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope (left) and the SMARTS–GSU 1.5-meter Telescope (right) over the U.S. National Science Foundation Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSF NOIRLab. And, like a vast river, the Milky Way can be hard to navigate without some stellar guides: constellations. Among them, Sagittarius (left of center) is particularly important as it has an iconic asterism, called the Teapot, that points toward the center of our galaxy, where the supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A* resides. Nearby, Scorpius (right of center) is a standout feature in the sky with its bright red supergiant star Antares. Often called the ‘heart’ of the scorpion, Antares can point the way to the Galactic core as well.

This image is part of a fulldome photo. You can also see it as a panorama.

This photo was taken as part of the NOIRLab 2022 Photo Expedition to all the NOIRLab sites. Petr Horálek, the photographer, is a NOIRLab Audiovisual Ambassador.