Time is running out to catch one of the most breathtaking sights in the night sky: the center of the Milky Way.
The heart of our galaxy, made up of billions of stars, shines brightest during warmer months before fading from easy view as fall turns into winter. With the colder season approaching, stargazers in Oklahoma have just a short window left to take in this cosmic spectacle.
The good news? You don’t need a telescope to see it. All it takes is a clear night, minimal light pollution, and a spot far from city glow. A camera can help capture the view, but your eyes alone are enough to witness the galaxy stretching across the horizon.
And Oklahomans are in luck: Southern states should have better views of the Milky Way further into the year.
Here’s what you need to know to spot the Milky Way in Oklahoma, plus a handful of the state’s best locations for stargazing.
What is the Milky Way galaxy?
The Milky Way is our home galaxy with a disc of stars that spans more than 100,000 light-years. Because it appears as a rotating disc curving out from a dense central region, the Milky Way is known as a spiral galaxy.
Our planet sits along one of the galaxy’s spiral arms, about halfway from the center, according to NASA.
The Milky Way sits in a cosmic neighborhood called the Local Group that includes more than 50 other galaxies. Those galaxies can be as “small” as a dwarf galaxy, with up to only a few billion stars, or as large as Andromeda, our nearest large galactic neighbor.
Why is it called the Milky Way?
The Milky Way got its name because from our perspective on Earth, it appears as a faint, milky band of light stretching across the sky.
When is Milky Way season?
Though the Milky Way is generally always visible from Earth, certain times of year are better for stargazers to catch a glimpse of the band of billions of stars.
“Milky Way season,” when the galaxy’s bright center becomes easier to see from Earth, typically runs from February to October, according to the Milky Way photography website Capture the Atlas.
But because visibility from Earth depends on the latitude, the further south you go, the longer the Milky Way season will last. In the Northern Hemisphere, which includes the continental United States, the best time to see the Milky Way is generally from March to September, according to Capture the Atlas.
Is the Milky Way still visible in September? Can I see it from Oklahoma?
The center of the Milky Way, which Dyches refers to as “the core,” became visible in June and was expected to shine every night through August as it gets higher in a darker sky.
But just because we’re well into September doesn’t mean the Milky Way is no longer visible in the U.S. – just that it may be harder to spot. In fact, southern states like Oklahoma, nearer to the equator, may continue to have decent views of the Milky Way through late September.
From September to October, the Milky Way is generally visible in the evening, according to Capture the Atlas. The galactic center will also appear at a progressively vertical angle at the beginning of the night and gradually decrease in the sky until it reaches a horizontal position.
New moon phase ideal for Milky Way viewing
In fact, a new moon phase that begins Sunday, Sept. 21, means there will be less celestial light for the Milky Way to contend with in order to make itself widely visible. That makes the second-to-last week in September prime viewing for Milky Way fans, meteorologist Joe Rao wrote for Space.com.
“As soon as darkness falls, it becomes evident as a wide glowing arch of variety and beauty, stretching across the sky from the northeast to southwest,” Rao wrote.
Where, how can you see Milky Way from Oklahoma? Tips, dark sky communities
Stargazers can observe the Milky Way by looking for the Summer Triangle, a shape formed by three bright stars that spans across the Milky Way, according to science news website LiveScience.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the Milky Way rises in the southeast, travels across the southern sky and sets in the southwest, according to Weather.com.
Spectators will have the best luck on cloud-free nights and away from city light pollution.
Website go-astronomy.com lists several state parks in Oklahoma and how they’re ranked on the Bortle dark sky scale, which is a numeric scale that measures the night sky’s brightness of a particular location. Class 1 is for the darkest skies on Earth, and Class 9 is the brightest, innercity skies.
Darkest locations in Oklahoma include:
Alabaster Caverns – Bortle Class 2
Black Mesa State Park – 1
Gloss Mountain State Park – 2
McGee Creek State Park – 2
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Milky Way may be visible longer in Oklahoma, South than other US places