One thing I’ve wondered: we can see the Milky Way, yes, but it’s really very faint, as compared to the beautiful images we see from, say, Hubble. Ditto other galaxies.

So here’s my question: are galaxies really as bright & pretty as they look in most pictures we see, or is this chiefly due to the long exposure time for the image, and the real thing, if we were out ther looking at it, is actually really dark?

Just the curiosity of some random 28-year old webmaster.

Anyway, I can always use a telescope. Marvellous device! Every time I see the night sky, I really really feel something very special. Sometimes, as if something is calling me. And I bet I am not the only one

I am looking forward to more.

As a possible topic how about talking about what will happen when we traverse the Galactic plane in the near future.

I’m connected through dialup and it played fine. The second time. Just turn the sound off so you don’t get bits of dialog, open another tab and do something else while it plays through once.

Great work. I wonder if you could pitch it to a studio or something…

Nancy A:

The best solutions I’ve found to YouTube issues are to a) get the absolute latest Flash plugin and b) get a computer that can handle it. Frankly I don’t like YouTube at all because of the Flash requirement (I can manage a) but not b) ), but it’s the go-to site for this sort of thing.

The answer is “We do!” The Milky Way forms a complete circle around the sky, 360 degrees. It’s kind hard to see from the surface of the Earth, since we can only see 1/2 the sky at any given minute, but an astronaut a million or so miles from the earth would have a great view, except in the direction of the Sun. The part of the Milky Way away from the center of the galaxy is a little dimmer and narrower than the part towards the center, but not a lot different. The reason is we really can’t see very far (in visible light), too much dust and gas. It’s kind of foggy. towards the center (Sagitarius), we see the arms between us and the center, but except for a couple of chance clear spots, we mostly see the arm closest to us. In the opposite direction, we see (mostly) the next arm out. At right angles (but in the plane of the Milky Way), we see some of each. Perpendicular to the plane, we don’t see much, except for zillions of other galaxies, but they’re all too faint to see without a moderate-sized telescope.

As for the resolution, have you considered trying Google Video instead of YouTube? YouTube videos are at 320×240, while Google Video goes up to 640×480.

As a solution to both the quality issue and the iTunes listing, I’d recommend blip.tv for hosting. Those guys are awesome…they respect your IP (whereas you may not realize what you’ve signed away to YouTube), they accept high-quality videos, generate the Flash automatically while still making the high-quality version available, and also have a push-button “publish to iTunes” option. Totally free…they have a ad-bases revenue sharing model, but you’re not required to use it.

Definitely recommended.

Very very well done, i’m looking forward to the next episode!

We’re on dial-up at home. And the vacation house. No prospect of broadband until we get down to just one.

Work frowns severely on downloading videos.

The ultimate option would be to take the laptop to my parents home where they have broadband for my niece who lives with them. But for no apparent reason the sound has decided not to work.

So your recent trend toward video in the blog is a total bust for me.

How long has it been known that The Milky Way is a barred sprial galaxy? I didn’t know that until I saw Q&BA! I confess my only Astro class at Michigan was 101 (Solar System/Planets), but I dig astronomy and feel like I missed a memo.

Also, your talk of how the universe is filled with galaxies reminds me of my all-time favorite Hubble image. You know the story better than I do, but I recall that the director had a relatively huge portion of time to use at his own discretion. So he pointed Hubble into a void. Into the blackness where no light source was known to exist. But he exposed the image for something like 10 days. And it came back as a frame packed edge-to-edge with galaxies of all shapes, colors, and sizes.

Grooviest. Image. Ever.

The image and the story: perhaps material for a future Q&BA?