Location of common stars in the Milky Way

[dajatsu]

I have seen the latest location of the Sun in the milky way, but what about other common stars we see at night. Are their locations published?

 

[Catastrophe]

Hi Dajatsu

That is an interesting question. You probably found it easy to search: distance Sirius (for example) and get an immediate answer of 8.611 light years.

Or, you can ask "Sirius star location?" and get the RA and dec (like latitude and longitude) or a "look over there, down and left a bit" sort of reply.

If you might ask another question in your search engine, such as "Where is Sirius located in the Milky Way? you might get an answer like:
The Sirius system is directly "upstream" of our solar system within the galactic arm of our Milky Way Galaxy.

I hope this is the sort of answer you wanted, but there are others here able to give you a much better reply. I don't know how many stars this works for.

Best wishes

Cat

 

[dajatsu]

Hi Dajatsu

That is an interesting question. You probably found it easy to search: distance Sirius (for example) and get an immediate answer of 8.611 light years.

Or, you can ask "Sirius star location?" and get the RA and dec (like latitude and longitude) or a "look over there, down and left a bit" sort of reply.

If you might ask another question in your search engine, such as "Where is Sirius located in the Milky Way? you might get an answer like:
The Sirius system is directly "upstream" of our solar system within the galactic arm of our Milky Way Galaxy.

I hope this is the sort of answer you wanted, but there are others here able to give you a much better reply. I don't know how many stars this works for.

Best wishes

Cat

Yes, the second is the kind of answer I am looking for. In fact, a NEW sketch of the Milky Way in this article pinpoints the location of the Sun a particular arm of the Milky Way, which led to my "You Are Here" post on Facebook. I want a similar picture of where Sirius, Polaris, Alpha-Centauri are in the Milky. For example, I would like locations for the three stars of Orion's Belt that, I imagine, show them to only appear in a nice straight line, sort of close together from our perspective.

 

[Smee]

There are 3D interactive models of many constellations in the phone app. STAR WALK 3

Not exactly what you're after, in that it doesn't locate the constellations within the galaxy, but good for re-imagining Orions belt.

 

[Catastrophe]

dajatsu
How are you getting on? Have you any left unfound?
Cat

 

[Ethar]

Anyone knows 5 of the most commonly known stars of the sky and their location?

 

[Catastrophe]

What do you mean by location?
Just RA and dec or something more 3-dimensional?