A few weeks ago, I trekked outside town in the squinty hours of the morning on two separate days to observe and sketch the Milky Way. Nothing compares to a naked eye view of the Milky Way from a dark sky. During the winter months when we're facing away from the furiously busy core of our home galaxy, the tenuous outer arms can seem a bit atrophied by comparison. Despite that, this slice of sky is still rich with structure. From Sunset Crater National Monument, the dizzying heights of this misty waterfall cascaded through Auriga, past Taurus and Orion, before drenching Monoceros and Canis Major in a spray of rippling starlight. I got a little ambitious with the sketch, and ended up trying to bottle 80 degrees of sky onto 8 inches of paper. I'm definitely not a cartographer. Pressing such a large section of the sky onto a flat sheet can be a surprisingly ornery process. After several erasures, I had my bright stars plotted and worked my way through the constellations and then the fainter stars they encompass. This took up my first early morning of observing. On the second morning, I worked my way down the Milky Way from Auriga to Canis Major. Auriga was at culmination when I started, and Canis Major was reaching its apex when I finished. Along the way, I was able to enjoy the delicate clumps of several open clusters. More were certainly within grasp, but I had to leave those for another session at some point in the future. The overall structure in my sketch was rather blunt compared to the subtle glow the Milky Way gives in person. However, I feel like I know this piece of sky much better, having tried to reproduce its fluttering streamers of light and dark. I'm looking forward to seeing its familiar face again very soon. I hope everyone else enjoys a little naked eye Milky Way before affixing eyes to eyepieces this winter. The full report and sketch can be found here: http://www.perezmedia.net/beltofvenus/archives/001397.html Jeremy Perez Flagstaff, AZ http://beltofvenus.perezmedia.net -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.