Milky Way Help

The Milky Way is the visible concentration of stars, star clusters, bright gas clouds, and dark dust lanes that lie along the plane of our galaxy in the sky. The settings in this view control how the Milky Way is displayed in the main sky chart.

Milky Way Display

Show Milky Way: Turns the Milky Way off or on. When turned off, the Milky Way is not drawn, and most of the other settings in this section are disabled.

as Framed Outline: shows the Milky Way's boundaries as a thin outline.

as Filled Area: shows the Milky Way region filled with a solid gray color.

as Realistic Image: shows a digital all-sky panorama of the Milky Way, provided by Axel Mellinger.

Milky Way Intensity

Intensity: Sets the brighness level of the Milky Way when shown as a filled area or realistic image.

Fade in Small Fields: When turned on, the Milky Way's intensity will fade to zero as the field of view decreases from 10 to 1 degrees wide. It is often not useful to show the Milky Way in very small fields of view.