Milky Way Disk 100 - Summer - for Northern Hemisphere Observers

Celestial objects within plus or minus 10 degrees of the Milky Way's galactic equator

Sort order: Catalogue Id plus Galactic Longitude and Latitude. Version 1.0 7/2021

Notes

This is a personal observing list that provides an good guide to the most prominent astronomical structure in the Northern Hemisphere's night sky: The disk of our Milky Way Galaxy. During the July through September, the Milky Way's disk rises along the eastern horizon, then bisects the sky running from the south to north local horizons, and then sets in the local western sky. During this summer observing season, objects along the Milky Way's spine are a favorite of the amateur astronomy community. This observing list begins with objects within 10 degrees of the galactic equator at the local southern horizon, beginning with M62 and Ptolemy's Cluster near minus 15 degrees galactic longitude and then works along the galactic equator (and north towards the northern local horizon) to the Perseus Double Cluster near 135 degrees galactic longitude. Many will already be familiar with the prominent Messier objects, like the Dumbbell Nebula (M27).

This observing list is a subset of a larger 2,000 object list that I developed in 2008. The list was built around five core prior catalogues:

• Clark, R.N., 1990. A Catalogue of Deep Sky Objects, Appendix E in Visual Astronomy of the Deep Sky, Cambridge University Press and Sky Publishing ;
• Mullaney, James. 1998. Celestial Harvest: 300-Plus Showpieces of the Heavens for Telescope Viewing and Contemplation. Dover. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2003Ast....31R..95M ;
• Barnard's Catalogue of 349 Dark Objects in the Sky. CDS Cat Id. VII/200A http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?VII/220A ;
• Georgia Institute of Technology Online Edition of E.E. Barnard's "A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way" (1927) http://www.library.gatech.edu/about_us/digital/barnard/index.html.
• Belmont Society. Feb. 2004. Colorful Double Star List. (Webpage) http://www.belmontnc.4dw.net/dblstrs.htm ;
• Kaler, James B. 2002. The Hundred Greatest Stars. Springer. (Kaler001-Kaler100) 2002hgs..book.....K http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2002hgs..book.....K ; and,
• Kaler, James B. 1997. Stars and their Spectra: An Introduction to the Spectral Sequence. Cambridge Univ. Press.1997stsp.book.....K http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1997stsp.book.....K
.

The Milky Way 100 (Summer) observing list includes colorful double stars beyond the iconic Alberio in order to better round out the summer observing experience. Some objects that readers might expect are omitted by the plus or minus 10 degrees of the galactic equator. These include the Ring Nebula (M57) and the Lyrae Double-Double.

Codebook - Partial

• Cat_id_this - Catalogue number within this catalogue. More than one row may have the same catalogue number. This is intended to capture the one-to-many relationship between references in prior catalogues that comprise one entry in this catalogue. Catalogue id MWD007, the Pipe Nebula is illustrative. The Pipe Nebula consists of several objects that are in Barnard's Dark Sky Catalogue. Objects in this catalogue are denoted "MWDS", meaning "Milky Way Disk - Summer". That designator leaves room for expansion into a future Milky Way Disk 100 - Winter edition catalogue covering galactic longitude 135 through Orion to galactic longitude 220.
• Clark# - Catalogue in Appendix to Clark, R.N. Visual Astronomy of the Deep Sky.
• GotoSlewId - Nearby bright star to catalogue object intended to be used for Goto telescope synching. For higher accuracy Goto pointing, slew to that nearby bright star; resynching your hand-controller, and then proceed to the target.
• Type_Simbad - Object type using 2008 Strausberg Simbad catalogue nomenclature. Current nomenclature can be found at url http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-display?data=otypes .
• "V" means variable.
• "**" means double star.
• "*" means single star.
• "*i*" is a deprecated Simbad object type meaning star in multiple star system or in a cluster.
• "GlC" means globular cluster.
• "OpC" means open cluster.
• "Cl" means cluster.
• "PM" means high proper motion star.
• "DNe" means dark nebula.
• Adding a star "*" suffix means to an identifier suspected object classification.
• CaldwellName - Caldwell 100 Object List Id Number.
• PositionSubCategory - Component in Milky Way Galaxy in which - in this writer's opinion - the catalogue object is located based on distances reported in astronomical literature and catalogues. The 2008 distances in this catalogue have not been updated for recent Gia measurements.

K. Fisher fisherka@ipns.com 7-7-2021