Look up overhead on any of these frosty winter’s nights, and if you have a dark area away from direct lighting, you’ll see the Milky Way shining brightly.

The bulge of the Milky Way will be at its biggest here, as we are looking towards the centre of our galaxy. The centre of our Milky Way galaxy is bright, crowded, and busy. It's filled with fast-moving stars, big clouds of gas, and turbulent magnetic fields; all surrounding a black hole that's at least two million times heavier than the Sun.

The gravity of the black hole is so powerful that anything that enters it is trapped, including light. But it's encircled by a spinning disk of hot gas that's spiralling into the black hole. The hot gas emits X-rays, which orbiting observatories can detect. Recently, astronomers found a long filament of gas that's squirting away from the black hole. The gas is moving into the galaxy at almost the speed of light; adding more turmoil to the already busy centre of the Milky Way.

It is here, looking towards the centre of our galaxy that we find the constellation of Sagittarius, the archer. To most modern eyes, its brightest stars outline the shape of a teapot, with the handle to the left and the spout to the right. To see the Teapot the right way up, face south and then look straight up. Imagine the combined glow of the millions of stars in the disk of our Milky Way as the steam escaping from the teapot. You need dark skies to see it; city lights overpower its subtle glow.

But if your skies are dark enough for you to see the Milky Way, then take the opportunity to scan this rich area of the sky with binoculars or a small telescope. Here, you’ll encounter the Lagoon and Trifid Nebulae - stellar nurseries; regions where vast clouds of gas are collapsing to give birth to new stars.

Others are at the other end of the stellar life cycle; big clusters of geriatric stars. One such cluster is M22, which is about 10,000 light-years away. It contains half a million stars, all packed into a region of space only a few dozen light-years across. By comparison, a similar volume of space around our own solar system contains only a few hundred stars. M22 is a globular cluster. At more than 12 billion years, it is one of the oldest objects in our entire galaxy.

It is in this same area of the sky that we find one of the most prominent winter constellations. Scorpius, the scorpion is high in the sky, and one of the easiest constellations to imagine. It really does resemble a scorpion, and it too has a potent stinger; a pair of bright stars at the tip of its curving body.
The brighter star in the stinger is known as Shaula. It’s the second-brightest star in Scorpius, so it’s hard to miss. Fainter Lesath stands just above it. Both stars aren’t just in the same line of sight, they are also at the same distance from Earth, at 572 light years. The light we receive from these stars left 50 years before Columbus sailed for the Americas!
Shaula consists of three stars. The system’s main star is more than 10 times as massive as the Sun. At that great heft, it consumes its nuclear fuel in a hurry. It’ll soon begin to exhaust its fuel, so it’ll puff outward. The star will engulf its nearer companion, which is only a few million kilometres away. That’ll probably destroy the companion, perhaps sending its core spiralling into the core of the main star. That may hasten the demise of the bigger star, which is likely to explode as a supernova.
Lesath is a single star, but it’s also a stunner. It’s about 10 times the Sun’s mass, and it’s many thousands of times brighter. Although Shaula and Lesath appear quite close together, they’re more than 150 light-years apart. Even so, the stars are related. They were born from the same giant complex of gas and dust. This region has given birth to many massive stars, including Antares, the scorpion’s bright orange heart. But the stars are only loosely bound together, so they’re moving apart, and spreading their magnificence across the galaxy.
The brightest stars visible along the Milky Way are generally “local”, that is, they lie within a few thousand light years of Earth. One very local star is Alpha Centauri; the brighter of the two Pointers, not far from the Southern Cross, now high in the southern sky. Our nearest neighbour, it’s located only 4¼ light years from Earth. A mere stone’s throw away from us. In comparison, the Hubble Space Telescope has photographed galaxies whose starlight left on its journey to the Earth a whopping 10,000 million years ago!
Shining brightly, low in the north-eastern sky we find Vega, one the brightest stars in the sky and also one of the closest to us, at a distance of only 27 light years. The name Vega comes from ancient Arabic, and it means the "swooping eagle." Today, though, Vega's better known as the "harp" star, because it's in the constellation Lyra, the lyre or harp. It's the only musical instrument enshrined in the stars.
Also in the north-eastern sky, we find Altair, the brightest star of Aquila, the eagle. In fact, the name “Altair” means “the flying eagle.” Altair is only about 17 light-years away — closer than all but a handful of the stars that are visible to the unaided eye.
Astronomers have found that Altair contains a lot of heavy elements. That means the cloud of material that gave birth to Altair offered plenty of ingredients for planets. A lot of those ingredients are still there, in the form of dust grains around the star. But so far, astronomers haven’t discovered a single planet around the star. Any planets that do orbit Altair are unlikely to host any life. Altair is much younger than the Sun, so there’s been a lot less time for life to develop.
The Moon cycles through its phases about once a month. It starts at New, waxes until it’s Full, then wanes until it’s New once more.
Not only does it change phases, but it also changes its position in the sky. It creeps into the western evening sky a couple of days after it’s New. When it’s Full, it rises at sunset and remains visible all night. And a couple of days before it’s New again, it rises shortly before the Sun, so it’s in the eastern sky at first light.
If you lived on the side of the Moon that always faces Earth, you’d see our world going through the same cycle of phases that the Moon does. Unlike the Moon, though, Earth’s position in the sky wouldn’t change. Our planet would always appear in the same spot above the horizon, day and night, month after month.
Earth’s place in the sky would depend on your location on the lunar disk. If you were at the middle, Earth would stand straight overhead. But if you were near one of the poles, Earth would stand low above the horizon.
And if you lived on the lunar farside, you’d never see Earth at all, it would remain forever hidden on the other side of the Moon.
The Moon is at First Quarter on July 3rd, Full on the 11th, at Last Quarter on the 18th, and New on July 25th.

Happy observing!