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Science Forum Index » Astronomy Forum » Curious: How many stars can we 'see' in our own galaxy?
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| B.T.World |
 Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 5:28 pm |
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With 100 - 200 billion stars in our Milky Way, how many can we see?
With the naked eye, I think we can see several thousand.
With good amateur telescopes, I assume maybe hundreds
of thousands or maybe even millions.
With space telescopes such as Hubble, I assume we could see billions.
With our galaxy's size roughly being 100,000 light years in diameter,
what % of the 100-200 billion stars can't we 'see'?
E.g. blocked by the black hole at the center or blocked by billions
of other stars or blocked by gigantic gas clouds?
Where are the stars we can't see? At the other side of the
black hole or is it all the stars beyond e.g. 10000 light years,
as their light is blocked or masked by the in-between stars?
As you can tell, I don't know the basics about astronomy so
any explanation or good URL is appreciated! |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 5:54 pm |
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On May 1, 7:28 pm, "B.T.World" <btrwo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Quote: With 100 - 200 billion stars in our Milky Way, how many can we see?
With the naked eye, I think we can see several thousand.
With good amateur telescopes, I assume maybe hundreds
of thousands or maybe even millions.
With space telescopes such as Hubble, I assume we could see billions.
With our galaxy's size roughly being 100,000 light years in diameter,
what % of the 100-200 billion stars can't we 'see'?
E.g. blocked by the black hole at the center or blocked by billions
of other stars or blocked by gigantic gas clouds?
Where are the stars we can't see? At the other side of the
black hole or is it all the stars beyond e.g. 10000 light years,
as their light is blocked or masked by the in-between stars?
As you can tell, I don't know the basics about astronomy so
any explanation or good URL is appreciated!
I heard two other numbers: 400 billion and even a trillion. |
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| ah |
| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 11:03 pm |
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B.T.World wrote:
Quote: With 100 - 200 billion stars in our Milky Way, how many can we see?
With the naked eye, I think we can see several thousand.
49,357 by my last count.
Quote:
With good amateur telescopes, I assume maybe hundreds
of thousands or maybe even millions.
With space telescopes such as Hubble, I assume we could see billions.
With our galaxy's size roughly being 100,000 light years in diameter,
what % of the 100-200 billion stars can't we 'see'?
E.g. blocked by the black hole at the center or blocked by billions
of other stars or blocked by gigantic gas clouds?
Opaque mass.
btw, the 'hole' at the center is actually purple.
Quote:
Where are the stars we can't see? At the other side of the
black hole or is it all the stars beyond e.g. 10000 light years,
as their light is blocked or masked by the in-between stars?
Opacity is a function of the sum of the quantity and type the mass in-between.
Quote:
As you can tell, I don't know the basics about astronomy so
any explanation or good URL is appreciated!
http://www.astronomy.com/
--
ah |
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| Sam Wormley |
| Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 11:30 pm |
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B.T.World wrote:
Quote: With 100 - 200 billion stars in our Milky Way, how many can we see?
With the naked eye, I think we can see several thousand.
With good amateur telescopes, I assume maybe hundreds
of thousands or maybe even millions.
With space telescopes such as Hubble, I assume we could see billions.
IIRC the 11 CD-ROM USNO stellar database has about half a billion
stars cataloged. Estimates for the mass of the Milky Way range
from 140 to 700 billion solar masses.
That's a lot of stars. |
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