Measure Milky Way inclination by hand

In article ,
(Stuart Levy) writes:
- find the point where the Milky Way crosses the equator,
in Monoceros a bit east of Orion.

All good suggestions, but just one caution... The bright stars in
Orion are mostly in "Gould's Belt," which is inclined about 20
degrees (from memory -- could be wrong) to the Galactic plane. The
actual intersection between the Galactic plane and the equator is, as
Stuart says, in Monoceros. I make it about 1/3 of the way from
Sirius to Procyon.

In general, visual methods of defining the Galactic plane will never
be terribly accurate because of the presence of obscuring material
(dust). It's still a fine idea to do the exercises Stuart describes,
though, to gain an intuitive understanding of the relationships.
Just don't go insisting that the standard values are wrong if yours
disagree by a few degrees. :-)

--
Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
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